The price of a 12.5kg cylinder of cooking gas is set to hit N18,000 by December, Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGM) has said.
NALPGM said the only way to hold the price from escalating to such outrageous amount is for the federal government to restrict the activities of the terminal owners.
President of NALPGM, Olatunbosun Oladapo, told Punch in an interview that the price of cooking gas has skyrocketed at terminals.
Oladapo noted that there has been a sudden increment from between N9-N10 million per 20 metric tons to N14 million per 20 metric tons.
He said that if the federal government doesn’t intervene, the price of gas could potentially reach N18 million per metric ton by December.
“There is a ridiculous hike in gas prices going on right now, and I am afraid that if the Federal Government does not step in to checkmate the activities of these terminal owners, the price could reach as high as N18m per metric tons by December. This means that a 12.5kg could go as high as N18,000,” he added.
According to him, terminal owners were “hiding under the guise of high foreign exchange to increase the price to further increase the suffering of the masses.”
“Now, the ordinary man would not be able to buy gas. How many minimum wage earners can afford gas now? Everyone is turning to firewood and charcoal. The surprising thing was that they visited President Tinubu last week, and promised to work together with his administration to make life better. Now they have come back and started doing something else. Where are all the palliatives and buses they promised to donate? We have not seen anything,” he said.
In August, the association had told Nigerians to anticipate higher costs for cooking gas from mid-August 2023 as a result of rising international prices, high tax rates, high prices of vessels, forex scarcity, and naira devaluation.
