The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria has said that the greatest problem causing the rise in the cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas, is the fall of the naira against the United States dollar. This came as a renowned petroleum engineer and energy analyst, Bala Zaka, stated that the dormancy of Nigeria’s refineries had warranted massive import of LPG into the country.
Already, the price of LPG jumped by over 100 per cent within eight months, as the Federal Government recently implemented a 7.5 per cent Value Added Tax on imported cooking gas. “The greatest problem affecting cooking gas price is our exchange rate,” PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, told our correspondent. He added, “The official exchange rate towards the end of 2020 was N306/dollar. It moved up from N306 to N360 and up again to N380, and now it is N411 for one dollar. “With the rise of our exchange rate, the cost of virtually everything in the market, not just cooking gas, has been increasing. The fundamental thing is because our naira is weakening.”
