Connivance between officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and a private jetty terminal owner, ALGASCO, is set to create artificial scarcity for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
Consequently, the price of a 12.5kg cylinder that hovers presently between N2,800 and N3,000 may jump to N4000 or N4,500, thereby making the product not to be within the reach of the common people who are already queuing to the government programme of switching on to gas as against firewood or kerosene
Bassey Essien, executive secretary, Nigeria Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) has alleged that officials of the Marine Transport Department (MTD), a unit under Nigerian Product Marketing Company, have deliberately connived with a private company (ALGASCO) that owns a jetty to divert LPG vessels, thereby creating monopoly and price instability of the product.
According to Essien, who spoke with newsmen in Lagos, Algasco monopoly in the LPG market has made price of the product increased from N2.4 million per 20 metric tons truck to N3.5 million for the same quantity in less than one week.
He says that the price instability has also affected the price of 12.5kg cylinder of LPG, which has increased from N2,500 to as high as N3,500 to N4,000.
Essien notes that government efforts to supply major terminals with LPG product in Lagos are currently being eroded by PPMC inability to manage vessels bathing schedule.
“Major terminals are been starved of product but if the product is available to all the terminals, the issue of price instability will not exist.
“Now that only one terminal receives product, they are the one that will determine the market price and when they see that other terminal has product, they will quickly crash the price and make it difficult for others to sell and make profit.
“So, this is not an issue of price increase, it is price instability because if it is price increase, we should why it is going up and if is coming down, we should know why it is coming down,” he says.
He says some time last year same thing happened and it was selling for N4.7 million and when Algasco perceived that other terminals were selling it crashes the price to N2.9 million.
NPMC should create a schedule that will allow LPG vessels from Bonny to barth twice in a month, noting that the inability of vessels to bath is creating supply gap.
However, when Ian Brown, managing director of NAFGAS, which is the parent body of Algasco, was contacted, he said the allegation by NALPGAM was unfounded and that the issue was not as straight forward as the association want the Nigerian public to believe.
He said part of the product that his terminal took delivery of was imported while some were brought from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG).
He said he had explained at length to the members of NALPGAM, but wondered why they had to continue to go to town that such an allegation that could cause great disaffection in the society.
