November 29, 2017 [Vanguard] - Following the upsurge of Illegal gas plants and skids across the nation, the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, has disclosed that the storage capacity of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG has increased by 80 per cent in Lagos and its environs.
The Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, which noticed this in the past four years, stated that Lagos depot storage capacity which stood at 6000 Metric Tonnes, (MT) in 2014 rose to 30,000MT in November 2017.
According to the DPR, Zonal Operations Controller, Mr. Wole Akinyosoye, the development was in line with the pivotal objective of the Federal Government on increasing domestic gas utilization.
Speaking at the DPR, Annual General Meeting in Lagos, he said, “We are also pleased to report that the downstream gas market is growing in leaps and bounds and delivering on the pivotal objective of government on increasing domestic gas utilization, and nowhere has this been more evident than here, in the Lagos zone.
“The growing gas numbers are indeed very impressive, especially in the LPG sector. The depot LPG storage capacity in Lagos increased from 6,000 MT in 2014 to 30,000 MT in 2017, there is still more capacity expansion underway.
“Concomitantly, the numbers are also growing on gas plants, gas skids and gas retail outlets. These are interesting developments. Now our people are being nudged to adopting a comparatively cheaper, cleaner cooking fuel as we democratize the use of LPG. This is a welcome development, but we noticed also that there is another side to the coin. The exponential activities in the LPG market have come with growing challenges, especially on safety.
“Recently another gas explosion occurred somewhere in sub- urban Lagos where three people were wounded and one, very critically.
“We did not record any incident from the LPG facilities registered by DPR in the period of this report and our preliminary deduction from the accidents is that it indeed pays to operate under regulating; where safety measures are prescribed and followed through.
Meanwhile, the average price of LPG, (cooking gas) for 12.5 kilogramme, kg and 5kg decreased by 13.4 per cent and 13.6 per cent respectively in the third quarter of this year.
According the Nigeria Bureau of Statistic, NBS, the average price for refilling of a 12.5kg cylinder for cooking gas stood at N4, 754.3 in the second quarter and N4, 118.24 in the third quarter of this year. Similarly, the average price for the refilling of a 5kg cylinder for cooking gas stood at N2, 364 in the second quarter and N2, 043 in the third quarter of this year.
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