NLPGA commends Obasanjo over 15 year old policy ... as former President gives keynote address at June 23,24 summit

By Our Correspondent

The Nigeria Liquified Petroluem Gas Association (LPGA) has commended the former President,  Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for the policy initiated during his tenure as the country's President, declaring that the policy had promoted LPG positively to what it has become today. 

The association President, Nuhu Yakubu made this disclosure during a courtesy visit on the former President in Abeokuta on Tuesday.

In a statement by Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, the visit was part of the next month summit of the association, which Obasanjo promised to present a keynote address on the  liquified petroleum gas industry.

According to Yakubu, "the association deem it fit to pay the courtesy call, simply because of the role he played in promoting LPG to what it has become today. The policies that Obasanjo initiated as back as 2005 leading to 2007 intervention, domestic supply intervention has led to what the supply sustainability that we have in the industry today. 

"We thought that as our conference and exhibition is coming up on the 23rd and 24th of June and also the 15th year anniversary of Nigeria LG intervention in LPG in Nigeria, we thought it was a good time to see him, thank him, celebrate him and equally invite him to partake in our conference. 

"It is an international conference in partnership with gas academy of Singapore. We have the commitment of a lot of international exhibitors, including manufacturers of all sorts of LPG appliances, new technologies in LPG are coming to exhibit and with the support of LLNG, we thought it might be nice to meet the person who made all these things possible, in the person of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to join us in celebrating the 15 years of domestic LPG supply in Nigeria and also to hear from us what we think will be the next 10, 15 years will be and to advise the industry.

"The policy that Baba, President Olusegun Obasanjo initiated then in a nutshell got the international oil companies and producers of gas to commit a certain volume of their production to domestic use. The policy states that all gas producers in Nigeria, rather than export all the gas should commit a certain volume to domestic use. 

"So far, unfortunately, it is only Nigeria LNG that has complied with that policy and thanks for their compliance we have a situation even in the manageable situation that we have, even it is because of that compliance that we have had the market grown the leaps that it has grown, so much so that the Nigeria LPG is adjudged the fastest growing in the world," the LPGA President said.

On why there has been fluntuations in the price of LPG, Yakubu explained that it was simply because of the price of the US $.

"So, once you have the US dollars rise or increase as it is as we all know, it is only logical that it will affect the retail price, but again, thanks for Nigeria LNG, there is a dominant supply in the market otherwise it would have been worse than this. Perhaps, successive governments can copy what was done 10, 15 years ago as to initiate policies that will enable some reasonable stability in the supply side and pricing so that this fluntuation in price will be a thing of the past."

He added that, "there are a lot of advocacy on the table to address some of these things, but again, it takes a private and public sector collaboration to manage the situation," he submitted. 

On the core objective of the association,  the President said, the the interest and the focus of the association "is all about liquified petroleum gas, the deepening of LPG use in Nigeria, safe use of LPG in Nigeria, applicable use of LPG in Nigeria, advocacy around the right policies and for promoting LPG in Nigeria and also supporting ourselves as members of the association.