Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo on Sunday said his intention during his regime was
to develop the nation’s natural gas for vehicles to use and reduce dependence
on imported petrol.
Obasanjo
said he gave out licences to companies in a bid to achieve this, adding that by
now, 50 per cent of the vehicles in the country should have been running on
gas.
The
former President stated these during a courtesy visit by the management of
Nipco Plc to him at his Presidential Hilltop residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
In
2006, the Obasanjo administration gave out licences to three companies, Nipco
Plc, Contact Global and Global Steel, for the development of Compressed Natural
Gas for vehicles.
But
it was gathered that only Nipco, which later went into a partnership with the
Nigeria Gas Company to form Green Gas Limited, had invested significantly in
the project since then.
While
reacting to comments by the Managing Director, Nipco, Mr. Venkataraman
Venkatapathy, Obasanjo said, “When I gave the licence in my time, the idea was
to use what we had and by now, we could have put half of all the vehicles on
gas.”
Venkatapathy
had earlier said the replacement of petrol by the CNG would save Nigeria the
much-needed foreign exchange on importation of petrol.
He
said, “The CNG is a superior auto fuel alternative to liquid fuels mainly
petrol and diesel, specifically for countries like Nigeria, which is blessed
with abundant (over 186 trillion cubic feet) availability of natural gas that
remains untapped.
“To
replace 20 per cent of the current petrol consumption of Nigeria, natural gas
required is less than five per cent of the total domestic gas consumed
currently and less than one per cent of the current gas production. Foreign
exchange saved will be close to $2bn.”
According
to him, in Benin City, Edo State, over 4,000 vehicles run on the CNG which
resulted in replacing 20 million litres of petrol from 2012 to 2015 and forex
savings of over $9m.
He
said Green Gas had developed nine operational CNG stations, with three stations
under completion and five under construction.
A
former Special Assistant on Petroleum Resources to President Obasanjo, Dr.
Muhammed Ibrahim, who was on the Nipco team, said, “I was one of the team
members when President Obasanjo was in office in 2006 that initiated the full
concept of development of gas for vehicles and other applications in the
country. It was during his regime that President Obasanjo awarded three
licences to three companies to invest in the promotion and diffusion of
Compressed Natural Gas for vehicular application in the country.
“But
because of the capital-intensive and high-tech nature of the project, only one
company today after 10 years has invested millions of dollars in the project
such that the entire Benin City is encircled with a network of gas pipelines
with about seven CNG gas stations providing the CNG to more than 4,000
vehicles.
He
said the company had constructed the largest CNG station on the African
continent in Ibafo, Ogun State.
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