The President Muhammadu Buhari-led regime has been urged to come up with a policy on standard gas cylinders as part of its LPG development plan. This, the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Retailers (LPGAR) said, would curb incidents of disasters from substandard cylinders.

The association, which is a branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG), said such a policy would ensure only standard cylinders were in circulation in the country.

Chika Umudu, the Branch National Chairman of LPGAR, made the remarks in an interview in Lagos on Sunday against the backdrop of rampant cases of substandard gas cylinders in circulation, which led to several mishaps.

Mr Umudu said the policy should encourage importation and production of standard cylinders.

He said, “what importers do nowadays is to import what in my estimation are substandard cylinders which are affordable by average end-users.

“The issue of substandard cylinders is becoming worrisome.

“Most of the cylinders in circulation now fall short of what we can call standard.

“Although retailers have critical roles to play but government should lead in the process,” he said.

Mr Umudu said: “From our observations, those who used to import quality cylinders are no longer importing, even Techno Gas that recently commissioned its cylinder production plant in Lagos doesn’t seem to be producing again; if it still does, we can’t find it in the market.

“We hope that what happened to other producers before has not happened to it.

“Government is supposed to provide all necessary incentives to support local production.”

He said camp cylinders which most low-income earners in the country used appeared to be the most vulnerable.

“I equally think the system should re-examine the purpose of camp gas vis-à-vis safety.

“There is a need for the government to invest massively in the sector or provide intervention funds for private investors to stop the hike in price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG),” he said.

He asked the government to invest in the sector or, better still, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should provide some intervention funds for private investors.

“Doing this, we would be preparing for the energy transition, which is here anyway. It will also help in our decarbonisation campaign,” he said.

On the association’s expectations for 2023, Umudu said it looked forward to improvement in the process of policy formulation regarding LPG in 2023.

He said this had become necessary because the sector could not attain the desired heights without people-oriented policy diligently implemented.

(NAN)