There has been rising use and consumption of liquefied petroleum gas by various homes across the country due to the steady rise in price of kerosene.
An analysis of the latest report on Petroleum Products Imports Statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the volume of HHK imported into Nigeria between May and September this year dropped by 51.894 million litres.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo recently stated that Nigeria spent $1bn as subsidy on kerosene in 2015 and stressed that this was because of the massive dependence on kerosene and firewood by millions of households in the country.
He, however, declared that the government had decided to unlock the domestic LPG value chain as this was one policy that the current administration was passionate about since Nigeria had one of the largest gas reserves in the world.
Also, to deepen the LPG usage, the government recently constituted an inter-ministerial committee to expand the use of the LPG, chaired by Osinbajo.
In the NBS report, which was obtained by our correspondent in Abuja on Friday, the bureau stated that a total volume of 86.031 million litres of kerosene was imported in May. The volume dropped to the 34.137 million litres in September.
A further analysis of the report showed that the country recorded a reduction of N6.369bn in the amount spent on kerosene importation during the review period.
In May this year, a total of N10.61bn was spent on kerosene importation, while the figure dropped to N4.25bn in September.
The Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had both canvassed the increased use of cooking gas as opposed to kerosene.
