Abundant gas, negligible consumption 

Sometime in 1973, Christopher Ilo, an accomplished bricklayer, warned his deviant employers in ABECO Construction Company in Calabar: “I cannot be in a river and soap enters my eyes”. Ilo had migrated from Onitsha to Calabar where bricklayers were in short supply.

The parable to the managers of ABECO was to remind them that Ilo had options. Etesis Limited, A. B. Martins, Asuquo Works and Ekpo Group were construction giants offering attractive remunerations where the accomplished bricklayer could instantly switch to.

Ilo’s warning parable to the managers of ABECO reminds me of the plight of Nigeria’s gas consumers. Nigeria swims in an ocean of gas, but soap is entering the eyes of Nigerian gas consumers. Unlike Ilo, Nigerian gas consumers have no options. The soap will continue to irritate their eyes.

Nigeria sits on 205.6 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves. But it musters one of the lowest per capita consumption of gas in Africa. Tiny Senegal has a per capita gas consumption of 9kg while Nigeria lumbers along at a shameful per capita rate of 2.5 kg. 

Two weeks ago the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) inadvertently explained the abysmally low gas consumption in Nigeria. It warned that Nigeria was plagued by unfathomable gas infrastructure deficit which can only be addressed if the federal government encourages the investment of $10 billion annually in gas infrastructure over a period of 10 years.

Nigeria has a gas infrastructure deficit of $200 billion. That equally explains why the oil companies in Nigeria flare gas worth N800 billion annually. 

Besides, the production capacity of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) is abysmally low. It cannot produce enough cooking gas for Nigeria.

There are myriads of reasons why cooking gas consumption is abysmally low in Nigeria.

One of the reasons is Nigeria’s retarding policy of importing what it has in abundance and exporting what it lacks. Nigeria sits on an ocean of gas but it imports 1.5 million tons of cooking gas annually. 

The importation is done with a weak naira which has been persistently depreciating in the last 18 months.

That automatically prices cooking gas beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians. That probably explains why the cost of filling a 12.5kg cylinder of cooking gas has sailed perilously close to N20,000.

The next reason for the reprehensible attitude of Nigerians to gas consumption is the cost of appliances. The cost of the cheapest four-burner gas cooker is in the neighbourhood of N80,000. Few Nigerians can dole out that much to obtain a gas cooker. Consequently, millions of homes have re-tolled to cook with firewood as the pump price of kerosene enters four digits per litre. 

Even the gas cylinder takes a fortune for anyone to acquire. The cost of an empty 12.5kg gas cylinder hovers around N30,000. Few can afford that.

In 2022, the federal government set for itself the unenviable target of increasing gas consumption in Nigeria from a paltry one million ton to 6 million tons per annum by 2027.

That tall target could be met if government goes back to fulfill its failed promises on the boosting of gas consumption. Some of the promises date back to 2015.

Ibe Kachikwu as minister of state for petroleum resources promised in 2015 to drive kerosene out of Nigerian kitchens and replace it with cooking gas.

In what the minister of state tagged “Gas Revolution”, the federal government was to flood Nigerian homes with free gas cookers.

Nigerians were impressed by Kachikwu’s promise. Unfortunately, by the time Kachikwu was eased out of office in May 29, 2019, not one gas cooker had entered any Nigerian home. It turned out that the minister of state was a man of many words and less action. The promise was made for the gallery.

Now that the federal government has seen the need to beef up gas consumption, it can dust up Kachikwu’s Gas Revolution and flood the homes of Nigerians with free gas cookers that will lure people into gas consumption.

Another way of driving up gas consumption is by dusting up yet another failed promise made by another government official. That will involve the fulfillment of the planned injection of 10 million gas cylinders into the market. 

Two years ago the NNPCL announced plans to make gas distributors the sole owners of empty cooking gas cylinders. The plan to pump 10 million cylinders into the market might be part of that change of ownership.

Under that noble plan, NNPC was to ensure that consumers get a different gas cylinder at the retailers’ shop each time they refill. The plan was absolutely necessary because the current plan where consumers own cylinders, amounts to a ticking time bomb that could explode and set Nigeria’s embattled abysmal gas consumption rate several years behind.

The life span of a standard gas cylinder is 15 years. But with consumers owning gas cylinders and the price of new ones heading for the stars, there are gas cylinders in some Nigerian kitchens that are 30 years old.

There are many old war horses still in service in Nigerian kitchens. They constitute the greatest threat to gas consumption in Nigeria. 

The abysmal rate of gas consumption in Nigeria is partially blamed on the fear of some consumers that gas would explode, kill people and destroy homes.

If the federal government fails to get outdated cylinders out of Nigerian kitchens, scores of them could explode simultaneously and give Nigeria an immeasurable public relations catastrophe.

The federal government should fast-track the gas cylinder ownership policy and ensure that no gas cylinder older than 15 years remains in Nigerian kitchens.

Besides, the reprehensible gas supply factor must be addressed with the urgency it deserves. When the price of cooking gas surged to N1,500 per kg, the federal government fought back with a ban on exports. That has failed to bring down the price. We need more gas processing plants to boost supply.