Cooking Gas Price Drops, Govt Promises Further Decrease
It disclosed this while reacting to the recent marginal drop in the cost of cooking gas.
According to findings, the price of 12.5kg LPG has dropped from N8,800 to between N8400 and N8200. In some outlets, the price of the commodity dropped to between N7,800 and N8,000 as of Thursday.
The development forced some LPG users to shift to charcoal or firewood, as consumers of the commodity raised the alarm over the persistent hike in its price.
The product had increased by 240 per cent for 12.5kg, moving up from N3,000 to N10,200 within the first 10 months of 2021.
“It is in government’s interest for the price to go down consistently and there are certain initiatives that are being taken at the moment, which hopefully will see to further drops in price regardless of the international cost,” the Programme Manager, National LPG Expansion Implementation Plan, Office of the Vice President, Dayo Adeshina, stated.
When asked to state one of such initiatives, he replied, “The discussions are still ongoing and there are certain things that you can do to stimulate the market which will have an effect. One of them also has to do with storage.”
About 65 per cent of the LPG is imported into Nigeria, while domestic production accounts for 35 per cent, hence the cost of the commodity in the global market affects the price locally.
Adeshina said that the international price of the LPG had risen so high in October last year, but dipped towards the end of 2021 into January 2022, as this also contributed to the recent drop in the LPG price across the country.
He said, “If you look at the international pricing of the LPG, and that might change again because it is not a fixed price, in January last year, it was $250 per tonne.
“It rose to $875 per tonne by the end of October and started dropping by the end of November into December, and came down to around $500 per tonne at some point but went up again in December to $708 per tonne.”
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