Emmanuel OchayiThe Nigerian Senate has summoned Dangote Refinery and several other prominent entities for an urgent inquiry into the decline in Nigeria’s natural gas production despite the injection of N250bn intervention fund.
“The decline occurred despite the infusion of N130bn into 15 companies for Compressed Natural Gas conversion centres,” stated the report.
The National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP), initiated by the Federal Government, aimed to promote CNG as the transportation fuel and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for domestic cooking and small industrial complexes.
However, despite this effort, gas production, which had been climbing from 39 billion cubic feet meters in 2012 to 49 billion cubic feet meters in 2020, witnessed a sudden plummet to 40 billion cubic meters in 2022.
In response to the concerning decline, the Senate Committee on gas has summoned the fifteen beneficiary companies, including Dangote Oil Refinery, Nipco Gas Ltd, and Delta State Government, for a progress report on the utilization of the funds.
Chinedu Okoronkwo, President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, expressed disappointment, citing the exclusion of his members from accessing the funds.
He emphasized the potential impact, stating, “If allocated properly, we would have converted over a million vehicles to CNG models by now.”
As Nigeria faces an urgent need for $20bn annually to fulfill its gas expansion plan, questions loom over the effectiveness of the intervention fund in revitalizing the gas sector and meeting the country’s energy demands.
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