Mr. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, Nigeria’s minister of Transport.
Amaechi made the appeal at a stakeholders’ workshop on Road Transport Management and Mass Transit Operations in Abuja, recently, noting that the investment would boost the use of natural gas as an alternative for Premium Motor Spirit, PMS (petrol) for road transportation.s
The minister urged petroleum agencies and private companies to provide the needed infrastructure to enhance the use of gas in the country.
“For CNG to be successful, we must deal with the first issue, which is gas infrastructure. If there is no pipeline in Kano, how can we take CNG to Kano? If they say that we should invest in CNG, the government must be ready to invest in gas infrastructure, meaning that everyone should have access to it on ground,” Amaechi said.
“Apart from the cost reduction, it is environment-friendly; so when the infrastructure is on ground, we can now introduce operators to it,” he added.
In his own presentation, Managing Director of Nigeria Gas Company, NGC, Mr. Tunde Bakare, said the company was ready to collaborate with the Ministry of Transportation, stressing the readiness of the company to introduce CNG as a viable substitute to fuel for road transport operations in Nigeria.
Bakare, who was represented by Mr. Michael Arinze, said transport operators have depended too much on fuel, hence the need to shift to natural gas vehicles to save cost.
“Natural gas vehicles use natural gas as an alternative to fossil fuel. It has become obvious that the viable alternative is natural gas and natural gas is what Nigeria has in abundance.”
He noted as at 2015, there were 22.7 million natural gas vehicles worldwide, with Iran, China, Pakistan, Argentina and India on top of the log of countries using natural gas as alternative to fuel.
He recalled that in 1995, Nigeria delegates went to New- Zealand to source for new cylinders to convert vehicles in Nigeria.
According to him, Pakistan was there to purchase used cylinders, while Nigeria purchased new cylinders.
“Today, Pakistan is number three in the whole world and Nigeria is not among the first fifty,” he lamented.
Bakare said CNG vehicles deliver the lowest emission, noting that if investors spend N13.8 million on PMS, the cost would be reduced to N3.6million on CNG-powered vehicles
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