On Thursday, the federal government said that it was taking steps to lower the cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas.
This was stated in response to a recent slight decrease in the price of cooking gas.
The price of 12.5kg LPG has reduced from N8,800 to between N8400 and N8200, according to data.
As of Thursday, the commodity’s price has decreased to between N7,800 and N8,000 at several retailers.
“It is in government’s interest for the price to go down consistently and there are certain initiatives that are being taken at the moment, which hopefully will see to further drops in price regardless of the international cost,” the Programme Manager, National LPG Expansion Implementation Plan, Office of the Vice President, Dayo Adeshina, stated.
He said, “If you look at the international pricing of the LPG, and that might change again because it is not a fixed price, in January last year, it was $250 per tonne.
“It rose to $875 per tonne by the end of October and started dropping by the end of November into December, and came down to around $500 per tonne at some point but went up again in December to $708 per tonne.”
He added, “Now, as of the third of January this year, that figure is $744 per tonne. So you can see there is a drop from about $800 around November to $700 in January. The issue here is that the price has been fluctuating.
“Yes you have the effects of Customs and the position of the VAT that made people pay tax for what they imported even in 2019 and 2020. Of course, some importers stopped importing, but there is a resolution going on to resolve that aspect.”
Adeshina told Nigerians that the government would take extra steps to bring down cooking gas prices even more, independent of global market fluctuations.