Scarcity of cooking gas hits Lagos, vendors sell at N1,600 per kg

 Residents of Lagos and Ogun communities on Wednesday, experienced scarcity of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers, popularly known as cooking gas.

Residents

Most vendors that opened shops in some neighbourhoods jacked up the price by selling at N1,600 per kilogram instead of N1,150 per kg sold last week.

Lamenting the situation, Mrs Joke Banjo, a trader at Agege, said she was searching everywhere to refill her 12kg cylinder, but could not find any until she got to Ojodu.

According to her, most of the gas stations  refused to open shops, assuming that it might be connected to the industrial action ordered by  the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) and  Trade Union Congress (TUC).

She said that the outlet she later discovered around Ojodu sold for most customers at N1,600 per kilogram.

Another woman, Mrs Adejoke Ibikunle, said there was a long quene for cooking gas in one of the gas stations in Ibafo despite the fact that it was sold for N1,500.

She said she managed to refill her 6kg cylinder before the station stopped selling due to long queue.

She expressed displeasure over the issue, wondering what would have happened to the supply of cooking gas.

Meanwhile, energy industry analyst, Yemisi Olagunju, has  also raised the alarm that Nigeria may be on the verge of a domestic LPG supply crunch.

However, the National President of the Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM), Mr Oladapo Olatunbosun, has expressed concern over the continued export of cooking gas from Nigeria despite the Minister of Petroleum Resources (Gas) pronouncing a ban on the practice, particularly by International Oil Companies (IOCs).

Speaking  during the 2025 National LPG Conference  and Exhibition in Lagos, Olatunbosun  insisted that the minister’s directive must be enforced to stop the outflow of LPG from Nigeria.

“The domestic market does not have sufficient volumes of gas, so there is no justification for exporting the product out of the country by the IOCs,” the NALPGAM president said

He said IOCs have consistently argued that they lack the facilities to separate propane from butane, a requirement for making the product more suitable for domestic use.

According to him, these companies had previously requested a timeframe to put such facilities in place, yet there has been no enforcement or monitoring by government agencies to ensure compliance.

“Companies prefer to export these products abroad to make more money,” he said, stressing that the practice undermines Nigeria’s domestic LPG market, which still struggles with insufficient supply.

Olatunbosun, therefore, urged the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Minister of State for Gas to compel the IOCs to establish the required infrastructure for propane-butane separation.