The Federal Government has constituted a committee to reduce the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), otherwise known as cooking gas, within a week and address supply constraints.

This was made known by the Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, via a statement issued by his media aide, Louis Ibah, on Sunday.

The minister noted that the constitution of the committee followed the recent rise in the price of cooking gas from about N700 per kg to above N900 in some parts of the country.

Ekpo stated that key challenges identified as responsible for the gas price increase include foreign exchange sourcing for imports and insufficient supply to the domestic market by producers.

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He said a meeting at his instance was held at the NNPC Towers in Abuja and had in attendance top officials of Chevron Nigeria Limited led by Sansay Narasimi, the Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) led by its Chief Executive Officer, Farouk Ahmed, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPCL).

Ekpo, who said Nigeria is abundantly endowed with gas reserves, noted the situation where some of the multinational firms were more concerned with gas exports without dedicating huge volumes to the domestic market was unacceptable and should be discouraged.

The minister later constituted a committee headed by the NMDPRA boss, Ahmed, with a mandate to come up with recommendations on how to boost supplies and bring down the price of cooking gas within a week.

The Star