Mr Chidi Izuwah, Director General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) on Tuesday said Public Private Partnership (PPP) was pivotal to unlocking Nigeria’s Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) potential.
Izuwah spoke during a panel session at the Nigeria LPG Summit 2019 on Tuesday in Lagos, jointly organised by the Nigeria Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA) and LPG Summit, based in Singapore.
The summit has the theme,” LPG: Harmonising Development and Growth in Nigeria and Africa.”
Izuwah said Nigeria’s gas reserve was enormous, hence there was need for more local and foreign investors to come into the sector to help develop it.
According to him, Nigeria is lagging behind in LPG penetration when compared to its African counterparts like Ghana, South Africa and Senegal.
He noted that the Federal Government, under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, was committed to using PPP to develop Nigeria’s infrastructure across all sectors of the economy, including oil and gas.
Izuwah said: “The ICRC is saddled with the responsibility of monitoring and ensuring the efficient execution of all PPP projects entered into by Ministries, Departments and Agencies on behalf of the federal
government.
“As at July 2019, there are 69 post contract PPP projects under implementation in Nigeria and from 2010 to 2018, we have been able to attract $8 billion investments to the country through PPP.”
He noted that opportunities in the LPG industry included production, supply, retail, distribution and manufacture of equipment such as cylinders and skids.
Also, Mrs Nkechi Obi, Vice Chairman, Techno Oil Limited, urged the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to check the influx of substandard LPG (cooking gas) cylinders into the country.
Obi said: ” We have set up a manufacturing plant where we are producing very high quality cylinders here in Lagos.
“We are asking the government to discourage substandard imports from coming in through taxation so that our business can thrive.”
Similarly, Mr Ahmad Damcida, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Culture Limited, said the DPR should ensure that all importers of cooking gas cylinders are properly licensed while SON should step up its certification processes.
Damcida said there were specifications that must be adhered strictly to, noting that the age of some of the cylinders being brought into the country was unknown to the authorities.
