The Federal Government has concluded plans to convert 200, 000 automobiles from using petrol to compressed natural gas (CNG) usage in 2022.
It also has plans to have at least one million automobiles converted in the next three years.
The Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva said the government was looking at providing 50 percent funding for marketers to bring equipment from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for both automobiles conversion kits and petrol station conversion technologies.
He said: “Today I invited you to hear especially just to discuss one issue, the issues of the structures that we need to put in place before removal of subsidy. We all agreed more than a year ago that before we deregulate or go side by side with deregulation we must provide an alternative fuel to our people.
“And the alternative we agreed upon was the autogas alternative to provide for our people. Since this agreement between us, a lot of work has been going on and we have come to a stage where we need to take it further but we cannot move further without ensuring that you as our partners are fully on board”, he stated.
He also said: “If not, you will have a situation where converted vehicles do not have places to refuel or you will have a situation where fuel stations do not have converted vehicles to fuel”, he added.
Chief Sylva who noted that a year after the project was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja vehicle conversions have not been going on, said the effort has been in putting in place the system for the conversion.
He said: “We have been talking to country OEMs and we have come to some arrangement with them. We have received commitments from the country OEMs that will give us half of what we require and the government will match them with the other half.
He said the funding would come from the N250 billion provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
However, the marketers pointed out that the CNG system in Benin City, Edo State, owned by NIPCO Plc has not been profitable after many years in operation.
The immediate past Chairman of Major Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Tunji Oyebani explained that a lot needs to be done to bring investments in.
“The bottom line is that if we are being frank with ourselves as at now it (NIPCO investment) hasn’t proved to be a profitable venture and if I am to read the body language of my investors it is such that it may be they had known that this is how things would work out they would not have gone into the venture at all.
“What we feel is that once the numbers are right you don’t necessarily need to tell any Nigerian investor or indeed any investor anywhere to invest”, he pointed out.
The Chairman of MOMAN, Olumide Adeosun disclosed that the group has working groups looking at what was needed to partner with the government on the project.