Buhari: Nigeria is getting closer to self-sufficiency in LPG production 

23 Dec Buhari: Nigeria is getting closer to self-sufficiency in LPG production 

President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigeria has moved a step closer to the dream of full utilisation of the country’s abundant gas potentials..

Speaking Tuesday at the commissioning of the Integrated Gas Handling Facility and LPG Processing and Dispensing Plants built and operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, an Upstream Subsidiary of NNPC in Oredo, Edo State, President Buhari also said the project has created hundreds of direct and indirect employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled youths in the area.

“The Oredo Integrated Gas Handling Facility and its associated NGLs depot will be delivering 240,000 metric tons of commercial grade Liquefied Petroleum Gas and Propane. It will also deliver about 205 million standard cubic feet per day of lean gas to the domestic market”, the president said.

He said in addition to its import substitution benefits that brings the country a step closer to self-sufficiency in LPG production and also supporting the growth of small and medium enterprises in the host communities would solve youth restiveness and ginger the economic activities in Oredo and its environs.

“Apart from being the largest onshore LPG plant in Nigeria with the potential of supplying about 20% of Nigeria’s LPG demand, the Oredo Integrated Gas Handling Facility was carefully situated at a corridor proximate to over 80% of Nigeria’s LPG demand source,” he added.

The President remarked that the project was a follow-up to the commitment of the administration towards making Year 2020 as Nigeria’s Year of the Gas.

“It is on the backdrop of this commitment that the Year 2020 was dedicated and embodied as Nigeria’s Year of Gas.”

“We are exiting Year 2020 with yet another milestone of commissioning the Oredo Integrated Gas Handling Facility LPG Processing and Dispensing Plants which will also support the on-going drive towards providing alternative auto fuel under the National Gas Expansion Program initiative.”

In his remarks, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, noted that the project highlights the commitment of NNPC in eliminating gas flares while increasing Nigeria’s value realisation from gas.

He added that the entire LPG and propane production is “targeted at the Nigerian market, further affirming the conscious efforts of NNPC and the Nigerian government in growing its participation in the LPG value chain to boost domestic supply, lower prices and deepen LPG penetration to safeguard our environment.”

The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, said the President’s clear directives to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPC were that “we must deepen domestic gas utilisation and monetisation and provide a platform where Nigerians can benefit from the enormous gas supplies that we have so that job and prosperity can be created and by implication, bring peace to the country.”