The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), said yesterday that petrol stations are to have points of sale for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
The agency’s Chief Executive, Farouk Ahmed, broke the news to reporters after a meeting with high volume suppliers of petroleum products in Abuja.
He said the proposal is to align with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s CNG initiative and also make CNG available at a cheaper rate.
Ahmed said: “We will require that CNG add on to be put in point of the petrol stations. And the new applications will be one of the requirements that you must have a CNG add on in your petrol station.”
He appealed to partners in the industry to invest to make points of sale for CNG available to consumers.
According to Ahmed, the NMDPRA was working in partnership with the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria (GACN) to make CNG affordably available.
“And we are working with the producing company, our sister agency, NUPRC, and NNPCL, as well as GACN to ensure that the product is also available at a reduced cost or at a competitive cost to the consumers.”
The essence of CNG, he said, is to reduce the importation of petrol by converting energy requirements of some of the retail outlets and depots by the stakeholders.
Noting the high entry cost, the NMDPRA boss said: “We have also discussed that so it is going to be in phases. By doing so we will reduce the requirement for AGO in terms of powering our generators by utilising the solar option.”
