10% cooking gas consumption in rural areas worries NIPCO
By Adewale Sanyaolu
Efforts to deepen Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) usage appears to be suffering a setback in Nigeria’s rural communities with only 10 per cent of resident n rural areas have access to the product.
Managing Director of NIPCO Plc, Mr. Suresh Kumar, gave the
hint at the 13th Nigerian Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA)
conference held in Abuja recently.
According to Kumar, the 10 per cent rural consumption figure
is a far contrast to the 90 per cent cooking gas usage in urban areas.
The NIPCO boss lamented that Nigeria has an untapped market
of about 20 million households in rural commutes alone which translates to
three million tons of LPG usage annually, adding that in most rural communities, an average woman spends
between five to six hours per day in the kitchen in the most suffocating in
unhygienic environment due to the use of traditional fuels while she spends an
additional two to four hours in the collection of these fuels.
To reverse downward the consumption figure for rural areas,
the NIPCO MD said LPG penetration in these places must be improved upon.
To achieve this, he said, NIPCO plans to deploy 50 skids
plants to rural communities within the next two years.
He added that the company has made massive investment in LPG
value chain, some of which are; construction of 11,000 MT coastal storage, over
100 Skids and bottling plants across Nigeria, over 125 LPG tankers for
logistics and donation of gas accessories to boost usage across the
country
He, however, called on the Federal and State Governments to
help provide the basic infrastructure to rural consumers and work with the
respective Local Governments of affected areas to help create awareness and
sensitisation.
Nigeria, he said, has an untapped market of about 20 million
households for rural commutes alone translating to three million tons annually.
Kumar listed some of the challenges confronting LPG
marketers to include; creating LPG awareness/educating households, overcoming
psychological barriers, developing bottling facilities and creating
cost-effective distribution channels among others.
On the part of the consumers, he listed some of the
constraints affecting LPG penetration, to include lack of
knowledge/safety awareness – about the product, usage and safe
handling, psychological barriers – fear, resistance to change, cooking and
eating habits, misconception about taste and quality of food cooked with LPG.
Others are; availability of cheaper fuels – wood, saw dust,
charcoal, higher product cost (Installation/Accessories cost and refill price
compared to other fuels) and low seasonal income levels, poor road conditions
and underdeveloped infrastructure, lack of distribution channel and uncertainty
over government policies, especially subsidy.
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