FG gives fresh condition for gas licence

The Federal Government says it will stop granting licences to gas companies with no capacity to build pipelines for gas distribution.

This, the government said, became necessary to discourage the transportation of compressed natural gas through the roads.

The Minister of State for Petroleum (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, made this disclosure when he was in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital on Wednesday.

Ekpo had visited Abeokuta for an on-the-spot assessment of Saturday’s CNG explosion at Ita Oshin.

A CNG gas truck owned by Gasco Marine had suffered a brake failure, rammed into the road barricade and went up in flames, killing one person and razing some vehicles.

Ekpo, who was received into the state by Governor Dapo Abiodun and his deputy, Noimot Salako-Oyedele, stated that he was sent by President Bola Tinubu to see to the root cause of the incident and sympathise with the people of Ogun State.

While saying the country must transit from fossil fuel to CNG, Ekpo revealed that he had directed the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, not to issue licenses to anyone who could not pipe CNG to the end users.

The gas minister emphasised that there was the need to stop virtual gas transportation, saying the Federal Government was putting efforts in top gear to build pipelines for seamless transportation of CNG.

According to him, this would prevent explosions on the road, while saving lives and property.

“As the Federal Government, we are trying all that we can to ensure we reduce virtual transportation of gas because of the volatility of it, especially with the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano pipeline.

“I have directed the authority chief executive that for any further issuance of licence, the company should be competent enough to pipe it to their end users so that we are not exposed to this kind of danger any longer.

”As a ministry, we are looking at how we can reduce a lot of virtual conveyance of gas. That is why we are putting much in developing the gas pipeline infrastructure so that the transportation would not be virtual, but rather through the pipelines. This will reduce this kind of incident and take off the pressure on our roads,” he said.

Ekpo stressed that despite the incident, CNG remains a better alternative to petrol, urging Nigerians not to be discouraged.

 “This is better than even fuel if you look at what happened in Port Harcourt where lives were lost and so many vehicles burnt. It is better we go this route,” he added.

Ekpo harped on the importance of companies using only quality cylinders for the distribution of gas to avoid incidents.

Speaking, the NMDPRA boss, Ahmed, assured Nigerians that the agency was working with the Standard Organisation of Nigeria and the Federal Road Safety Corps to forestall similar explosions on the road.

Ahmed maintained that some of the accidents occur due to the roadworthiness of the vehicle.

He added that training programmes are being organised for truck drivers to ensure safety on the road.

Responding, Abiodun appreciated the team and President Tinubu for reaching out to the state, promising to further adopt and promote the CNG initiative of the Federal Government.