Nigeria Firm to Manufacture Gas Cylinders in Egypt

• Nigeria Firm to Manufacture Gas Cylinders in Egypt

Rungas Industries, an indigenous Nigerian firm, in collaboration with the United Group of Egypt, has secured an executive partnership with Egypt’s National Organisation for Military Production to produce and assist with the distribution of Liquefied Petroleum Gas and Compressed Natural Gas composite cylinders.

The firm, which is a subsidiary of Rungas Group of Companies, said the Egyptian government had already allocated 28,000 square metres of land for the $30m project in Alexandria, the home for the Egyptian Gas Industrial Park.

According to a statement, the facility will produce 200,000 LPG composite cylinders for domestic use (cooking) and 130,000 CNG cylinders for vehicles and automobiles.

It said Rungas, in conjunction with Amtrol-Alfa Worthington of Portugal, would provide the technology and technical know-how to set up the type III LPG composite cylinder facility, which would be dedicated to domestic use while the CNG cylinders produced would be used for vehicles across Egypt.

The firm said the products would be exported from Egypt to neighbouring Arab countries and serve the North and Eastern African markets, benefitting from international trade agreements that were already in place.

According to the statement, the Egyptian government has mandated Rungas and its partner, United Group, to set up the facilities after extensive product research was carried out and Amtrol facility in Portugal was visited by an Egyptian delegation to carry out a compliance inspection to ensure that cylinders met all standards for cylinder production in Egypt.

The Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, NOMP, Dr Hassan Ahmad Ab Elimagied, was said to have executed the contracts on behalf of the Egyptian government and provided his support verbally for the project.

The Chief Executive Officer, Rungas Industries and the Group CEO, Rungas Group of Companies, Mr Lanre Runsewe, said with the partnership with Egypt, coupled with the ongoing launch plans for setting up an LPG composite cylinder facility in Nigeria, Rungas would be a continental force.

He was quoted as saying, “CNG is important for the Egyptian government because of the need to run on cleaner fuel and also to meet IMF condition, which advised the country to reduce fuel subsidy.”

According to Runsewe, the groundbreaking for the project will be in September 2019 and production of LPG cylinders is expected to start within nine months from the groundbreaking date while the launch date for the CNG composite cylinders is 18 months.