The Federal Government has revealed that vehicle owners in the country will have to pay N250,000 to have their cars converted to autogas from petrol.
This disclosure was made on Wednesday, December 2, 2020, by the Technical Adviser on Gas Business and Policy Implementation to Minister of State for Petroleum, Justice Derefaka, while on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, which was monitored by Nairametrics.
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While stating that the conversion of vehicles from petrol to autogas will take at least 7 hours at the various conversion centres, Derefaka also pointed out that vehicle owners will have different payment plans to perform the conversion.
What they are saying
Derefaka, who is also the Programme Manager, Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialization Project, said:
“The cost varies. So, in terms of cost implication, it depends on the cylinder of the vehicle and of course, for a typical SUV cylinder, it is a bit higher. On the average, it is around N200,000 to N250,000 and this is for a four-cylinder vehicle, but it becomes a little bit higher for a six-cylinder SUV vehicle.”
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Nairametrics earlier reported that the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, disclosed that the corporation is going to provide free conversion services in some selected NNPC retail filling stations across the country.
Derefaka further explained that there will be different payment plans for making the conversion, adding that vehicle owners can have agreement with commercial banks to get the conversion done.
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He also said, “The owner of the car basically will decide to say I want to run on autogas or CNG or LNG and like the Honourable Minister had mentioned as well, conversion basically has different strands, you can partner with your bank and then the bank will now agree with the conversion centre to say ‘Convert this our customer’s car for free.’
“Not free in its entirety, but you now go and covert your vehicle. What happens is that the installer will put some form of mechanism, that each time you buy the gas; a certain amount will be deducted to pay for the conversion kits.”
While dismissing the notion amongst many Nigerians that the conversion fee is expensive, the ministerial aide noted that payment can be done within 5 to 7 months, in addition to saving up 45-50% cost associated with petrol.
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What you should know
- The Federal Government had on Tuesday launched the autogas scheme, called the National Gas Expansion Programme.
- The programme involves the conversion of fuel-powered cars and generators from petrol to gas, and is aimed at deepening domestic usage of natural gas in its various forms.
- The programme is also in line with the Federal Government’s plan to make gas the first choice source of cheaper and cleaner energy. This follows the deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry with sharp increases in prices of petrol.
- The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources said that the availability of Autogas as an alternative fuel option will afford Nigerians cheaper, cleaner and additional choice of fuel. Cheaper than the price of petrol and better for automobile and other engines.
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May God have mercy on you people.
The autogas project was launched to Fail. In a bid to beat down the petrol consumption, you introduced autogas, and then the vehicle owner will cough out NGN250,000 from nowhere to help you drive the policy?
That’s absolutely insane.
Everything is not rosy with gas usage especially accidents that accompany it can be fatal.
The autogas conversion plan will become a policy somersault with the deregulation of the downstream sector if FREE conversion will not be implemented as earlier promised
while petrol might be expensive for transportation, LNG answers to food as we cook with it. I hope we are not solving transportation problem to create another hassle in cooking?
This is a welcome development, it’s long over due, but first more effort needs to be put into providing LNG filling across the country, because from Benin to warri you have only one, which is not even publicized, I found out on coincident.
I think the conversations is mainly for politicians, those who embezzled from government offices and yahoo yahoo, though they don’t pray anyone has money to buy a good car nor even eat in this country, why #250,000.
And auto gas is ur concern right now as the country stands right? Craze pple evrywher
WE WILL HAVE BOMBS PLYING OUR ROADS ??
…Will it work in Nigeria? After converting the car to Autogas, how sure are we that gas dealers will not embark on regular increase of the product as petrol dealers are doing now? Abeg, leave us, so that at least we can be managing to buy it for cooking for now…
Let’s have steady electricity first before autgas plan
Gas costs and widespread availability in the face of the expected jump in demand may help determine if this is worthwhile.
Total madness! You can’t provide steady light, you want to enrich yourselves out of poor people’s pockets with all problems this will cause with your kind of lawless enforcement agents.
Nigeria can’t make a bicycle from scratch to finish,let alone vehicles, and now convertion of an already designed vehicle to run on fuel will be done locally and for a cost that appears to me like another source of milk to the FG!
We obviously don’t have good roads, volatility of gas is unthinkable,this is the tropics and many of us largely illiterates, no awareness creation yet, and boom we r gonno have lng and cng in our vehicle tanks all over the country?
Are we really ready for this? It’s not like lng is even cheap at the moment.
If we couldn’t sustain our refineries, what assurance do we have that this too will not fail?
Koni ragba funyi all u people that are bringing out this auto gas issue, is that what next in this worthless country no food no money no work nothing nothing and u are talking about vehicle haaa fear God ooo
This one will not work in the Nigeria of today.
Moreover, if education is made free at all levels, even up to MSC level, then Nigerian can consider paying N250,000 to convert Tonga option.
Obviously this govt thinks backwards. You are considering gas option when even other African countries are already using electric cars.
Nigeria pls grow up. You are more than 60 yes old
The goverment should pay for the entire cost and not tell us to apply for a loan. If they convert us for free they will make there money back buy charging us 1% extra. On any gas during fill up hopefully in 15 years they will get there investment back. At least will will be consuming our product