The Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative PCNGI, says it has secured over $491 million in private sector investments within the past one year to boost the Automotive CNG sector.
Program Director, Engr. Micheal Oluwagbemi, made this known to Journalists on Monday at the State House,during a special media interaction program tagged, Meet The Press, organised by the Media Unit of the State House, Abuja.
Engr. Oluwagbemi further made known that the private sector investment has created over 9000 direct and 75000 indirect jobs.
He stated that, as a result of recent achievements, Nigeria’s capacity to convert vehicles from solely petrol or diesel to bi-fuel systems has grown by 3,000%, with the number of conversion centers expanding from an initial seven to over 200 across the country.
Oluwagbemi disclosed that the PCNGI team is on course to further procure 10,000 conversions by the end of first quarter of year 2025.
He revealed that the program has deployed a total of 405 buses as part of of the settlement of terms with the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress as part of the wage negotiations.
Gas Infrastructure Scheme
The Program Director of PCNGI highlighted the existing gap in CNG availability but assured that the newly launched Refueling On-Lending Program will address the issue by providing equipment at cost to key conversion centers and refueling partners.
Oluwagbemi stated that by June 2025, leveraging the last-mile gas infrastructure strategy, the PCNGI team aims to expand CNG coverage from the current five states to 17 states.
According to him, “25 sites are billed to benefit and 15 states are slated for this,already the first site in kwara state is live and kogi,Ekiti Rivers and Abuja will soon join them before May 1,2025, by June 12 we shall have Kaduna, Abia, Enugu joining the fray with Niger,Kano and Benue following shortly thereafter.
“To further bolster this base infrastructure, we have cooped our private sector partners to deploy over 150 new refueling locations in the next 18months.NNPC have already deployed 12 sites, with 8 to go this quarter, and the approval for additional 100 sought and secured for the next 18-24months.
“We are aware that as a result of our successful awareness campaign last year and ground breaking initiatives like CIP that pay the private sector to convert vehicles to CNG,there has been a visible gap in CNG availability at the last mile we note the longer queues in some locales but assure this is temporary.
Nigerian Gas Vehicle Monitoring system, NGVMS Initiative
The PCNGI Program Director further hinted that Plans are underway to launch the Nigerian Gas Vehicle Monitoring system, NGVMS, to ensure only properly converted vehicles are refueled at gas stations and operate on Nigerian roads.
Speaking on Institutional capacity and safety skepticism of the public, Oluwagbemi stated that the PCNGI has responded to the concerns via partnership with the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Gas to develop an end to end monitoring of CNG and all gas vehicles.
He confirmed that collaborative efforts are ongoing with the Standard Organisations of Nigeria SON, National Automotive Design And Development Council NADDC , Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority and the Federal Road Safety Commission.
He added that the initiative will in the next 60 days become active.
2024 Benin Illegal CNG Incident
Engr. Oluwagbemi assured that with the Nigerian Gas Vehicle Monitoring system, NGVMS, in place incidents of engaging in illegal fabrication of CNG cylinders will be totally avoided.
“Let me be clear, that the sole safety incident that occurred in Benin last year was a result of economic saboteurs engaged in.illegal fabrication of CNG cylinders and were arrested by the police. With NGMS in place that incident will be avoided as only properly labelled and credited vehicles with certified tanks will be refueled
“The necessary steps to launch NGMS are ongoingare ongoing,we expect it to be in place by year end.”He added.
The Presidential CNG Initiative (Pi-CNG) is a component of the palliative intervention of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration directed at providing succor to the masses sequel to the transitive challenges of the fuel subsidy removal.
Victoria Ibanga
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