Nagendra Verma, the Managing Director of Nipco Gas Limited has said that fuel costs N620 per litre in Abuja, meanwhile compressed natural gas for cars in Abuja costs N213 per scm (standard cubic meter).
He said this during a recent interview on the “Energy and You” series packaged by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), airing weekly via the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Network.
He also said that while diesel sells for N850 per litre, CNG for vehicles that use diesel in Abuja is around N219 per scm.
He said:
- “If we compare the price with diesel or PMS, the price of CNG for the different vehicles is approximately 35% of the current PMS or diesel prices.”
Verma said Nipco Gas has a 14-year experience of operating auto-compressed natural gas (CNG) in Nigeria, via 14 CNG stations and has converted around 7,000 vehicles to CNG in the country. He said:
- “This CNG project will be done at a very fast pace, and it will give relief to Nigerian citizens. As we all know NNPCL is the biggest oil and gas service provider in this country, and NNPCL is in every nook and cranny of Nigeria.
- “On the other hand, NNPCL has a wide pipeline gas infrastructure which becomes the backbone for the auto CNG stations. The natural gas pipelines will support the installation of CNG stations from where the gas will be taken.
- “Also, NNPC Retail has a wide infrastructure network of retailing liquid fuels. With the support of the NNPCL, the gas pipeline infrastructure, and the downstream retail network, the autogas CNG stations will come at a much faster pace to meet the timelines and be more economical, having such infrastructure already in place.”
He said that Nipco has been distributing CNG since 2009, and to Nipco, it is a service to society, not a profit-making business.
According to him, there are other businesses like the supply of gas to industries, that compensate for the losses encountered in the CNG business.
While addressing gas availability, Verma said that there is no shortage of gas in Nigeria, however, he did admit that there are constraints in the transportation infrastructure for gas.
He stated further that pipelines are available in the South-south and Southwest regions of the country and the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline is also progressing and very soon, will become active.
How the CNG value chain works
Verma said the CNG value chain is mainly about taking gas from pipelines and compressing it for automobile use and the compression is required to store more gas in a specific size of a cylinder.
He said there is a need to install mother stations at the pipeline locations.
According to him, there are presently four existing mother stations which will be connected to more mother stations and then to daughter stations which will have jumbo cascades. He said:
- “Almost 20 or 21 states and Abuja will be having CNG by way of compressed natural gas, while other states will be having CNG by way of liquefied natural gas (LNG) which other companies like us are also working on and the NNPCL is on top of it.
- “When it comes to safety, Verma said that CNG is just like other hydrocarbon products and should be handled carefully. He also pointed out that if there is any leakage, CNG goes up in the air and disperses and it also has a low flammability range which gives an added safety advantage.”
Since 1973, I have in Italy known that gas was used to power cars. I just don’t understand what Nigeria has been doing all these years. Meanwhile, Nigeria is more of a gas country than crude. We have been burning gas since Oloibiri oil field was activated. Is the Nigerian cursed? What is wrong with us? Thank God for Bola Tinubu and his removal of fuel subsidy. I have asked and conversion of my generator will cost 40,000 Naira. All they will do is put a gas carburettor. Is that rocket science that Nigeria had found too complicated to implement? I bet the subsidy cabal has been responsible for us neglecting gas.God save us
And yet, Italy is presently dedicating resources to enhance its electric charging network and progressively phasing out LPG and other fossil fuels. In my view, this autogas approach appears more like a give away to Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, much like the prolonged fuel subsidies was to them over the years.
If Nigeria continues to pin its hopes on maintaining an antiquated transportation and energy policy, first with heavily subsidized petrol and now this autogas policy as its long term solution, the country is destined to suffer from the Havana effect as seen in Cuba, where Nigerian roads are perpetually filled with old and highly inefficient second hand vehicles while the rest of the world adopts the latest and far more energy-efficient and safer vehicles.
Nigeria will be left far behind as transportation is evolves everywhere else in the world with TVs.
***Nigeria will be left far behind as transportation evolves everywhere else in the world towards EVs.
The same Italy whose nationalist government is leading the ‘revolt’ against electric cars in Europe, vowing to protect its combustion-engine car industry by trying (but however failing) to block the EU’s plans to ban the sale of new cars running on fossil fuels by 2035?!
Reality is that the combustion engine will outlive several generations of car production. Nigeria (which btw has an EV company) is in no danger of being “left behind”. We import most of our cars and if EVs are the only or predominant cars available, that’s what we will import and use in Nigeria. Meanwhile, both the NADDC and companies like Oando Clean Energy Limited are in the process of developing EV charging stations and infrastructure.
It’s the German auto industry, not Italy’s nationalist government, that will ultimately determine the speed at which combustion engine vehicles are phased out in Europe. Regardless, European consumers are demonstrating their preference for EVs through their purchasing decisions, with electric vehicles accounting for half of all new vehicle sales across the EU.
Lastly, Nigeria stands at risk of falling behind if it fails to recognize that the prudent allocation of its constrained resources should towards modernizing and revitalizing its stagnant electricity grid and industry, and not antiquated CNG transportation technology that much of the world has either never adopted or is actively phasing out. Prioritizing gas for electricity generation holds significance not only for supporting future EV infrastructure but also for energizing the domestic manufacturing sector, which Nigeria currently restricts due to its limited energy sources.
While many like you emphasize Nigeria’s import dependency, they often overlook the key issue: domestic manufacturing is severely hindered by heavy reliance on diesel and petrol generators due to an unreliable electricity grid. If we are to reduce the import dependence, the priority of energy policy in Nigeria especially related to gas should be on electricity generation, not on transportation, as it has naively been for the past 50 years.
Boosting manufacturing supports exports and jobs, enabling people to manage the increased cost of living post-subsidy removal. This might even pave the way for Nigeria to one day mass produce its own EVs, making them accessible to its citizens.
@TAI, so long as gasoline was cheaper than water in Nigeria (not to talk of gas), there was no financial incentive to convert cars to gas-powered.
Btw, until relatively recently the only natural gas produced was “associated” gas (ie, gas recovered as a byproduct of crude exploration and production), which were often re-injected or flared because dedicated gas infrastructure was lacking or non-existent, and the economics just didn’t make sense. Technology has changed the feasibility of natural gas, and makes it more bankable.
CNG was 120 naira or so then now it’s 219 why the sudden increment??
If you are converting to gas because of environmental conservation concerns, then great. But if you are converting as a cost saving measure note that gas is also a globally traded hydrocarbon, so there is no guarantee the price will stay low, when the price rises on the international market the price in Nigeria will rise too. If you are going to invest capital in converting your car, do not go in with rose tinted glasses.
All this hype about CNG is good but the information is incomplete if we don’t have information on the cost & where to retrofit cats to be able to use CNG.