Charcoal/Firewood steadily displacing Cooking Gas in Nigerian homes

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  • Author: Muyiwa Ige(LPG Stakeholder and Consultant)

The galloping rise in the retail price of cooking gas (LPG) in Nigeria, over the past few years, which has seen a kg of gas move from as low as N200 to as high as N800 (even up to as much as N1000 per kg in some locations in the country), has forced most low and middle-income earners to ditch the cooking fuel and shift their ‘allegiance’ to charcoal and firewood.

The economic woes ravaging the country, with its attendant high inflation, has substantially emasculated the purchasing power of most Nigerians, turning them to economic ‘gurus’ in the management of their limited financial resources.

Therefore, when a Nigerian with a monthly income of N65,000 discovers that N300 worth of charcoal will sustain cooking for the same duration as 1kg of cooking gas, they will settle for charcoal without hesitation, without taking the dire health implications of their decision into cognizance.

In the same vein, an auto-mechanic recently confided in me that his 6kg cylinder was already gathering a lot of dust where he dumped it in his house.

Unfortunately, the trend of high LPG prices may not abate anytime soon but escalate, with the approaching winter season in temperate countries; already negatively impacted by LPG supply disruption as a result of the ongoing Russia/Ukraine war.

LPG, an internationally priced commodity, traditionally becomes expensive during the winter season when the demand for the product peaks due to the rise in heating needs in temperate climes around the world.

It is nothing short of a monumental national embarrassment that Nigeria, a country with the largest proven gas reserves in Africa, estimated to be over 209 trillion cubic feet, still imports up to 65% of the cooking gas it consumes.

With the current dismal state of the national economy, it is apparent the conjoined problem of scarcity of forex and weakened foreign exchange rate will continue to keep the landing cost of imported cargoes of LPG very high; which unfortunately serves as the domestic benchmark pricing template.

The Nigerian government therefore must do everything that needs to be done to ramp up in-country production of LPG for the country to achieve self-sufficiency, if there’s going to be any chance of the price of LPG becoming affordable for Nigerians.

Mouth-watering incentives must be given to serious investors interested in venturing into LPG production and pipeline vandalism which starves Cooking Gas (LPG) production plants of feed-gas, must be curtailed decisively.

The projection made that Nigeria’s annual LPG consumption will hit 5M metric tons in 2022 is already a pipedream.

It will even be considered as a huge miracle if the country achieves the 1.7M metric tons it did in 2021.

Nigeria is already experiencing the deleterious effects of climate change, which is primarily caused by the emission of carbon monoxide from the incomplete combustion of dirty fuels like charcoal, and secondarily, by deforestation.

The felling of more trees for cooking needs will worsen the already damaging effects of climate change on agriculture, which will eventually culminate in food insecurity and a surge in crime rate.

This must not be allowed to happen!