The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics data has indicated that, on a year-on-year basis, price of refilling a 12.5kg cylinder of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, also known as cooking gas, increased by 122 per cent from N4,422 in July 2021

As part of the Federal Government’s N250 billion investment in the National Gas Expansion Plan, which aims to deepen consumption across the country, the Bureau’s latest report on a state profile analysis, Ebonyi recorded an average retail price of N11,212 for refilling a 12.5kg cylinder, followed by Delta at N10,926 and Ekiti at N10,883.

As was published in Economic Confidential , Conversely, the lowest average price was recorded in Katsina with N8,355, followed by Yobe and Kano with N8,383 and N8,614 respectively.

Analysis by zone showed that the South-West recorded the highest average retail price with N10,334, followed by the South -South with N10,239, while the North-East recorded the lowest price with N9,139.

According to Group Chief Executive Officer, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, more than 70 per cent of the over 200 million Nigerian population lacked access to clean cooking fuels.

Launched in August 2020 by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Government, in August 2021, commenced the implementation of the N250bn intervention fund for the NGEP.

The fund was meant to finance the establishment of gas processing plants and small-scale petrochemical plants, gas cylinder manufacturing plants, Compressed Natural Gas, among others.

Nigeria has proven gas reserves of 206.53TCF with plans to grow its reserves to 600TCF.

This is as households struggle amid rising inflation and declining incomes. Inflation is nearly 20 per cent, with the dollar-naira exchange rate over N670/$ at the parallel market where the majority of importers and manufacturers source their greenbacks. The NBS said incomes of 67 per cent households declined in August 2020 as against 2019.

However, experts opine that the statistics body has not released data on household incomes since then, but the rising inflation is an indication that incomes are becoming increasingly worthless in Africa’s most populous nation.