The Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGi) has launched the first compressed natural gas daughter station in Ilorin. The PCNGi Director, Michael Oluwagbemi, made this known via a post on his LinkedIn account on Thursday, May 30.
Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq commissioned the project on Wednesday, May 29. Kwara is the first state in Nigeria to benefit from the Federal Government-led initiative to reduce transportation costs and promote cleaner energy alternatives.
The Federal Government has also set up a CNG conversion fund for vehicle owners to support conversions from internal combustion engines to CNG.
Oluwagbemi says the Ilorin station is an autogas conversion training site. He also said that several states will be switched on in the next 3-6 weeks, ensuring Nigeria is ushered into a new era of clean, cheaper, safer and reliable energy.
In a May 29 interview on TVC News, Oluwagbemi said that as of 2023, when President Tinubu inaugurated the PCNGi, there were barely 5000 CNG vehicles in the country, primarily in the city of Benin, Edo state, where there was a pilot program in 2017 by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
He said: At that time, we had 12 dispensing stations in Benin City, 7 to 10 conversion workshops, and 23 mother stations supporting CNG for power.
The PCNGi journey so far
According to Oluwagbemi, the initiative has attracted investments of over $50 million to bridge the country’s CNG gap. He said that as of today, 30 active CNG refuelling stations are in the country, and 30 more are being constructed and will be available by July 31. He said that there are 141 conversion workshops in the country presently.
According to him, CNG availability is not evenly distributed in the country, indicating that 23 states are within the range of the CNG availability areas. He also highlighted the fact that refuelling stations are being built by private companies, like Nipco Gas, which is currently building 32 refuelling stations, with 10 being commissioned between the last week of May and the first week of June 2024: six in Lagos, four in Abuja, and one in Nasarawa state.
He also said Bovas Limited is constructing eight refuelling stations: four in Ibadan, four in Kwara, and two in Abuja. Plans to build another 10 between Ekiti, Nasarawa, Lagos, and Oyo states, as well as the FCT, are in progress. Meanwhile, he hinted that MRS is also considering constructing some stations between Kaduna and Lagos states.
Oluwagbemi highlighted that Axxela and a few other companies are implementing the CNG initiative. He stated further that the government does not own any of the CNG stations or other infrastructure. They are completely owned by private-sector players. In this case, the government acts only as a CNG catalyst by introducing tax waivers, import duty exemptions and other techniques to aid growth in the sector.