Cooking Gas Price To Reduce In Coming Days, NNPC Assures

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd has assured Nigerians that the price of cooking gas will start to reduce in the coming days following the suspension of industrial action by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.

The price surge followed the PENGASSAN industrial action, which was launched over the dismissal of Nigerian workers at the Dangote Refinery and suspended on October 1 after federal government intervention.

The Group Chief Executive of the NNPCL, Mr Bayo Ojulari, who gave the assurance, blamed the recent rise in cooking gas prices on a temporary disruption to loading and distribution during the strike by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.

Ojulari said this while speaking after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu.

According to the NNPC boss, the industrial action halted operations for several days and produced an “artificial” spike in prices.

He said, “The increase you saw was relatively artificial because for the period of the strike, movements and loading were delayed by about two or three days. And because of that, you see that impact. As things return back to normal, it takes some time for distribution to be fully restored.”
Ojulari also accused opportunistic retailers of exploiting the shortfall to hike prices.

The price of refilling a 12.5kg cylinder of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas, has increased to N25,000 this week from N17,500 the previous week.

He, however, assured Nigerians that as supply chains stabilise, the cooking gas price is expected to ease in the coming weeks.

“As you know, in Nigeria, people take the opportunity. With that delay, some of the people who had existing resources and reserves had to put up the price.”

“My expectation is that now that things are back to normal, prices should return to what they were before the strike,” he said.

Ojulari said the Dangote Group’s agreement to redeploy affected staff and the resumption of operations have begun to ease supply bottlenecks.