FG to stop ownership of gas cylinders by consumers – TheNigerialawyer

The Federal Government is coming up with a policy that will
remove the ownership of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (cooking gas)
cylinders from consumers.

It stated that the move would help deepen the use of LPG,
popularly known as cooking gas, adding that the government had
reached an agreement with two original cylinder manufacturers to
deliver 600,000 cylinders to LPG distributors on credit, with a
pre-payment period of 18 months.

Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on LPG penetration in Abuja on
Tuesday, the Senior Technical Assistant to the Minister of State
for Petroleum Resources on Downstream and Infrastructure, Brenda
Ataga , noted that the planned policy on gas cylinders would
require that the ownership of the facility “rests strictly on the
dealers and distributors.”

She noted that aside from deepening the penetration and usage of
LPG across the country, the policy would also address issues of
safety.

She said the Federal Government would soon commence a clampdown
on illegal roadside LPG dealers and urged operators to immediately
convert their outlets to micro distribution centres before the
beginning of the enforcement.

“The MDCs will essentially create and introduce into the market
what we call the cylinder exchange programme, whereby the cylinders
are owned by the distributors,” Ataga said.

She told operators, “There is no need for you to decant for
anybody that comes in, and that eliminates illegal risks as well.
You would fill them at the refill plants that would be tied to you
and exchange it with your customers because you know your customers
already.

“Your customers pay for only the content, while you own the
cylinders and control the management of those cylinders.”

Providing reasons for the policy, Ataga said, “It is for us to
be able to, at any point in time, discern and discover cylinders
that are bad, cylinders that need recertification and cylinders
that need to be removed from circulation.

“We put that onus on distributors going forward, to support the
safe and standard method of selling LPG. I tell you today that
Nigeria is the only country in West Africa that does not practice
the re-circulation model. Everyone has moved away from this because
again, most of the population cannot afford cylinders; so, you have
to remove that cost from them.”

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