Faulty supply chain responsible for high cost of gas, says Attah, NLNG boss
Contrary to popular speculations that Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) hiked price of gas, the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Tony Attah, has debunked the claims, saying the company has not increased the cost of gas.
However, he listed some reasons for the sustained high price which stemmed from mid of last year till date.
According to him, market dynamics and faulty supply chain are the reasons behind the inconsistency in the price of cooking gas in the country. Cooking gas is also known as Liquefied Petroleum Gas.
Explaining the reasons before the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who paid a visit to the NLNG plant complex in Bonny, Rivers State, Attah said the company was contributing 250,000 tonnes of the LPG, about 40 per cent of the total domestic cooking gas needed in the country, stressed that at no time had it increased its price.
Since November 2016 to this month, the LPG, which hitherto sold for about N3,400 for 12.5 Kg, was increased to about N6,000, but it has recently started a very gradual drop as it currently sales for about N4.500 in some parts of Lagos.
While maintaining that his company had no hand in the increase in the price of the commodity, he told the visiting minister that “The pricing of the LPG is basically on the market dynamics of the downstream of the NLNG operation. We make the gas available but we are not unaware of some of the vagaries of the LPG market”.
“The reality is that there is the need to change the dynamics of the supply chain of the LPG. We produce the LPG in Bonny and ship it to Lagos, which is the only receiving point today. The same gas from Bonny is now put on trucks and brought down to Port Harcourt as well as other parts of the country for the end users.
“Definitely, there is something wrong with the supply chain. The value chain is not efficient and the inconsistent pricing is as a result of some of the vagaries of the market. We did not increase our price; our price remains the same and we will continue to increase volume to bring down the demand pressure,” Attah said.
