Petroleum Ministry to Adopt Vehicles that Operates on Gas, FG Orders

In a move to deepen the usage and adoption of gas in Nigeria, the Federal Government has ordered the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to convert all its official vehicles from petrol to autogas.

This was disclosed by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, who spoke at the Ministerial Mandate Performance Scorecard Review session of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Permanent Secretary and CEOs of Agencies under the Petroleum Ministry in Abuja on Tuesday.

Since 2019, the Federal Government has been working hard to ensure broad usage and adoption of Compressed Natural Gas and Liquified Petroleum Gas across the country to further deepen usage of Nigeria’s abundant gas reserves and ease pressure on petrol imports.

Sylva said that the conversion of vehicles in his ministry and agencies shows that the Government is really working on the usage of autogas nationwide and supports its declaration that 2020 as “the year of gas.”

Sylva said, “I have surrendered my vehicles to the NGEP (National Gas Expansion Programme) to convert all to dual fuel with use of either auto-LPG or auto-CNG.

“And on that premise, I now have the moral backing to direct that all CEOs and their able lieutenants do same by converting all their official vehicles to run on autogas as a demonstration to the Nigerian people that indeed government meant it when we declared this year ‘the year of gas’.”

Justice Derefaka, the programme manager, the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme, NGEP, who was also at the event said that the usage of autogas would reduce pollution and the negative effect of carbon from incomplete combustion of petroleum.

He said that the NGEP was working on the right infrastructure to ensure the availability of affordable LPG and autogas in both the rural and urban regions.

Derefaka added that the LPG will serve as an alternative to both firewood and kerosene.