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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