AHEAD of the meeting of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) scheduled for next week, the price of Nigeria’s premium oil grade (also known as Bonny Light) yesterday rallied at $64.30 per barrel in the international market. Although the rise marks just an appreciation by $1.30, from $63.00, it is the highest in nearly one month.
The latest price showed an excess of $7.30 per barrel against the $57.00 reference price of the nation’s 2020 budget. But market watchers attributed the development to continued efforts of OPEC to achieve stability in the volatile market.
A release posted on OPEC’s official Twitter handle stated that the meeting of its members – Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Gabon, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo – to review the market would take place in Vienna, Austria on December 5, 2019.
Meanwhile, Federal Government says plan is afoot to ensure that Nigeria achieves local production of 360,000 metric tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) by 2023.
To this end, Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries will be rehabilitated.
Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, disclosed this yesterday at Nigeria LPG Summit 2019 in Lagos, currently going on under the auspices of Nigeria Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA) and LPG Summit with the theme, “LPG: Harmonising Development and Growth in Nigeria and Africa.”
Speaking through his Technical Adviser on Gas Business and Policy Implementation, Justice Derefaka, who represented him at the summit, Sylva said the move was part of the National Gas Policy of the government.
According to him, government is desirous of deepening LPG penetration in the country to ensure that not only about five per cent of its population currently using LPG as energy source is benefited but more people.
In this direction, government is oiling other plans for upgrading Lagos-Apapa LPG Plant from 4,000MT to 8,000MT storage and increasing LPG allocation to the domestic market from Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) to reduce butane/propane exports.
According to him, the government also aims to diversify supply sources with 110,160MTPA from Nigerian Petroleum Development Company’s Oredo facility expected to come on stream by first quarter of 2020.
“By our 2018 record, gas utilisation is being deepened by increasing LPG penetration. LPG consumption increased by about 16 per year on year. A total of 364 LPG plants licences and approvals were issued in 2018.
This is expected to give about 15 per cent rise in the nation’s LPG consumption based on storage capacity. We need to deliver the much-needed energy for development and growth.
We need to explore ways and means to scale through the Nigeria energy hurdle and put in place strategic measures to address the downside issues, challenges, gaps and aggressively pursue the upside opportunities,” he said.
On his part, Deputy Managing Director of World LPG Association (WLPGA), Michael Kelly said the organisation would support the efforts of the government to increase gas utilisation in Nigeria, adding that Nigeria was one of the 20 countries where 2.3 billion people lacked access to modern fuels.
He added that this could be addressed with the right policies and regulatory framework and cooperation between government and private investors.
