The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), has expressed deep concern over the importation of substandard cooking gas cylinders in the country.

The Board attributed this to insufficient cylinder production in the country which has prompted it to initiate a plan to expand local manufacturing of cylinders.

Mr. Simbi Wabote, the Executive Secretary of the Board said the only LPG cylinder manufacturing company in the country located at Isheri in Ogun, has the capacity to produce about 400,000 cooking gas cylinders yearly, whereas the country requires nothing less than three million cooking gas cylinders, annually.

Wabote said this was far below what Nigerian homes required annually, adding that this had encouraged the in-flow of substandard and expired LPG cylinders into the country.

He said that in order to stop this, the board had conceived what he called “the local manufacture of liquefied gas cylinders’ initiative’’.

He futher said that this would create employment opportunities, stop the importation of LPG cylinders and jump-start a new cylinder-producing industry.

According to him, the initiative is connected to the Federal Government’s domestic gas utilisation programme aimed at encouraging the use of cooking gas by every home in the country.

He noted that studies had shown that for domestic gas utilisation programme to pull through; there was the need to address the availability, affordability, and acceptability of LPG and its cylinders by all stakeholders.

Wabote said the initiative would make cylinders affordable and create a new industry in the LPG value chain with respect to local manufacturing.

The executive secretary said it would also enhance the use of cleaner fuel supply, thereby, reducing environmental pollution in the country.

It would also reduce the utilisation of firewood which would discourage deforestation, he said. Wabote said that the board would develop a funding- model to support would-be investors.

He said this had led the board to go into partnership with the Bank of Industry (BoI).