Petrol stations are to have points of sale for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), said yesterday.
The agency’s Chief Executive, Farouk Ahmed, broke the news to reporters after a meeting with high volume suppliers of petroleum products in Abuja.
He said the proposal is to align with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s CNG initiative and also make CNG available at a cheaper rate.
Ahmed said: “We will require that CNG add on to be put in point of the petrol stations. And the new applications will be one of the requirements that you must have a CNG add on in your petrol station.”
He appealed to partners in the industry to invest to make points of sale for CNG available to consumers.
According to Ahmed, the NMDPRA was working in partnership with the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria (GACN) to make CNG affordably available.
“And we are working with the producing company, our sister agency, NUPRC, and NNPCL, as well as GACN to ensure that the product is also available at a reduced cost or at a competitive cost to the consumers.”
The essence of CNG, he said, is to reduce the importation of petrol by converting energy requirements of some of the retail outlets and depots by the stakeholders.
Noting the high entry cost, the NMDPRA boss said: “We have also discussed that so it is going to be in phases. By doing so we will reduce the requirement for AGO in terms of powering our generators by utilising the solar option.”
As soon as the NMDPRA is through with engagements and deliberations with the stakeholders for an alignment with the decision, the regulation will be rolled out, he told his audience.
Ahmed said: “there are plans for CNG… you heard what Mr. President said yesterday (Monday) that all government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) should to patronise or refocus their mobility on CNG.
He said: “What we are saying from NMDPRA is to make it available to consumers, we are appealing to our partners in the industry to also invest in ensuring that that point of sale is available to the consumers.
“By so doing, we are going to roll out once we finish our engagement and discussions with them, we align.”
He also said that the meeting resolved that petrol stations should to have trackers to monitor their consumption.
This, according to him, is to ascertain the actual national consumption volume, noting that the industry was set to migrate from relying on trucking figure to actual consumption volume.
Ahmed said: “We also talked about our National Consumption: the requirement for petrol stations or retail outlets and trucking industry to put some trackers that monitor the movement of the product as well as the dispensing and accounting for the volume sold or the volume transported so that we can have a very good estimate of our actual consumption.
“Because currently what we do, we rely heavily on the trucking rather on than on the actual delivery into retail outlets or other consumption areas.”
He said one of the other issues ,which is of concern to marketers is the ability to import the petroleum products especially Automotive Gas Oil (AGO)diesel and ATK, which is Aviation Turbine Kerosene or Jet Kero in the advent of the new refinery that came on stream – the Dangote Refinery.
He said the refinery reserves the commercial decision to sell his products at any price based on market forces and that marketers have the right to make choices.
Ahmed said that ensuring adequate supply of product bridging supply gap remained NMDPRA’s primary concern, even as pleaded with Nigerians to patronise the indigenous firm.
He said: “And we allayed all the fears of the marketers that Dangote Refinery is a major achievement in our country because in the past we were importing every litre of petroleum product that we required except those supplied by modular refineries.
“And as oil producing country, we believe NMDPRA that we should support our local industries and that is why we encouraged our marketers to patronize our local industry.
“At the same time it is a commercial decision that they have to make themselves between the supplier and them the consumers or the marketers or the client.
“NMDPRA will not determine how much is sold, the price you are selling and price you are buying but just like any other market, it is a matter of supply and demand. It is your own decision to go to Dangote Refinery and purchase or for Dangote Refinery to determine the price they sell.
“But we, as the regulator, are only interested in ensuring that the nation is well supplied to prevent any supply gap.”
He blamed petrol price disparity on the high cost of diesel which is used for fueling the trucks that transport petrol nationwide.
The Chief Executive Officer of Matrix Energy Limited, Abdulkabir Adisa Ali, said the marketers have aligned with the decision of the Federal Government.
He appealed to Nigerians to be patient with the administration because the policy is not up to a year after its introduction.
Abdulkadir said: “We are all in alignment with the decision of the Federal Government. And I think Nigerians should be patient. It is less than a year that these decisions are taken.
“We are beginning to see the plan and we also see now that we have a refinery that is operating and we are also expecting more refineries to come on stream in the shortest period of time.”
He also said despite the high cost of forex, they place the country first before business, noting there may be no business without the country.
The Matrix Energy Limited boss said: “The most important thing is that we have NMDPRA that they are proactive and they don’t allow a problem to occur before they take a decision. It is good you have called this meeting and it is going to help the industry in a big way.
“You are asking about the FX, but the country first. It is when we have a good country the marketer is able to do business that the consumer will be able to buy. I think the decision of the Federal Government supersedes whatever individual decisions or plan that we have.”
THE NATION
