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.
It is scandalous that the cost of cooking gas should be soaring beyond the means of the ordinary people in a country reputed to have the ninth largest deposit of proven gas in the world. Sadly, a large volume of this gas that should have been put into use is flared into the atmosphere every day. The escalating cost of food and cooking gas has prompted the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) to express concerns for the fate of poor families struggling to survive the social economic hardships. The union has attributed the prevailing gas crisis to devaluation of the naira coupled with the inconsistent policy of the government.
While warning that many Nigerians could be compelled to drop LPG for traditional cooking methods, NALPGAM has noted that its rising cost imposes severe hardship on households, food vendors and small businesses that rely on cooking gas for their daily operations. This is forcing households to reconsider their energy choices amid worsening economic hardship in a country where many can hardly afford Kerosene for cooking. But the option of resorting to firewood should not be encouraged as it contributes to the destruction of the environment. It is therefore important that the problem be expeditiously tackled by relevant stakeholders, given its implications.
It is imperative that there be a strong commitment to all the international pacts on climate change, that are aimed at reducing the use of coal, firewood, and encouraging greenhouse gas emissions. To that end, authorities in both the federal and the states should give adequate attention to the gas crisis in the country by granting concessions to importers and people that want to invest in the domestic gas production business.
We commend states like Rivers, Imo, Delta, Edo, Bayelsa and a few others that have established major natural gas processing and liquefaction plants, which supply power and domestic cooking gas while we enjoin others to make investment in the sector. It is only through a significant increase in domestic production of LPG and reduced reliance on imports that we can make the price affordable to the ordinary citizens.
