The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has said that more private and public sector collaboration will be encouraged as Nigeria steps up effort to realise its target of boosting domestic gas utilisation.
Sylva made this known on the Twitter account of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Friday while inaugurating the Rainoil Limited Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) facility with a tank capacity of 8,000MT in Ijegun, Lagos.
He said the facility which also has about 40 LPG trucks would help to deepen cooking gas penetration in the country in line with the vision of the Federal Government.
Sylva said Rainoil Limited had strengthened its partnership with the government in gas utilisation and development of the gas sector in the country with the establishment of the facility.
He said : “Rainoil is really working in tandem with the vision of the federal government, in making gas a preferred fuel in the country.
” I am excited at what I am seeing here today. Everything can speak for itself. As you can see, energy is very important in the global economy and I am glad that Nigerian’s are playing key roles in the oil and gas industry.”
Sylva noted that Rainoil’s investment in gas development aligns with President Buhari’s agenda in the National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP), adding that the government has declared 2020 as “The Year of Gas”.
He said Nigeria had sufficient gas reserves to meet its energy needs as the government intensifies efforts to deepen LPG penetration and attain five million MT of LPG consumption by 2022.
Speaking at the inauguration, Mr Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director NNPC said the corporation was ready and willing to support all the companies that are making effort in accomplishing the federal government developmental agenda.
We believe that gas is our next instrument for developing our economy, and we commend Rainoil in its effort in ensuring the use of gas in the country, ” Kyari said.
On his part, the Group Managing Director, Rainoil Limited, Dr Gabriel Ogbechie, said that the decision to invest in growing the LPG sector started in 2018.
Ogbeche said : “Rainoil Gas will meet the energy needs of customers at the retail end in the coming months. There are filling plants in process where LPG can be supplied in cylinders to consumers.
” The expansion of Rainoil Limited perfectly aligns with the company’s vision and mission to continually proffer solutions to fill the voids in the energy sector.
“Nigeria has the fastest growing LPG sector in the world with a projected LPG market size of $10 billion, with the domestic demand seeing an increase of 40 per cent.”
He said the company would continue to support the government’s policy on deepening LPG penetration and will improve domestic consumption of LPG nationwide.
According to him, the business will increase domestic storage flexibility of LPG and provide direct and indirect employment opportunities, including training, skills acquisition, transfer and enhancement.
He said its operations also have an added environmental protection benefit as it reduces gas flaring and encourages the use of cleaner fuels.
