The stakeholders should do more to bring the cost down
The astronomical rise in the cost of cooking gas is posing problems for many consumers in the country. It is particularly biting hard on the ordinary people. Consequently, many families are resorting to cooking with firewood and charcoal as alternative means of energy. With the Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) warning that the challenge could trigger a social upheaval, authorities in the country must find a solution to the problem. The marketers, according to NALPGAM, are grappling with soaring depot prices, supply constraints, logistics challenge and rising operational costs.
In a statement jointly signed by both NALPGAM National President, Edu Inyang, and Executive Secretary, Bassey Essien, marketers now pay between N25.2 million and N26.2 million for 20 metric tonnes of the product. “The citizens of Nigeria now have to buy cooking gas, which should be a social commodity, at a prohibitive cost of over N1,500 per kilogramme,” according to NALPGAM. Meanwhile, the escalating price of gas has inevitably led to an increase in the cost of food items in the market just as people’s purchasing power continues to dwindle in the face of surging prices of essential commodities. This development is all the more confounding against the background that figures from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) reveal that local production from refineries and gas processing plants have actually increased. They accounted for the bulk of supply between April 2025 and April 2026.
