By Ismail Auwal

Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers has threatened to stop importing Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas because of inflation.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Executive Secretary Nigerian Gas Importers Association, Bassey Essien.

According to the statement, he said The NLNG supplies LPG to the terminals and these terminals sell to the marketers and at times in a day, the price can go up by about three times.”

“Take, for example, I was granting an interview on Saturday morning on this same issue and that morning some terminals were selling for N11.6m to N11.7m, but as I stepped out of the interview, it had increased to N12m.”

He told newsmen that the increase in import duties and taxes on the Gas was the reason why the traders would stop importing;

“And the annoying part is that for about a week or two now, nobody has been importing gas because of the issues with customs and VAT. And this is because since the position on these issues has not been clearly stated, importers have to pause.”

He added, “The customs is even clamping down on importers and so they cannot import anything, which means that the product in circulation across the country is from the NLNG.

“But when there are issues like this, some unscrupulous people will want to capitalise on the situation, which they are doing, because right now, from what we’ve got, the price at which NLNG product gets to Lagos is about N7m, but you get it at N11m and above.”

According to reports, the import price has increased by 240 percent for every 12.5 kilograms, which means the price has increased from N3,000 to N10,200 between January and October 2021.

About 65 percent of Nigeria’s cooking gas is imported, while domestic production is 35 percent. Stopping gas transportation could increase the cost of gas used.