Business News of Saturday, 18 October 2025
Source: www.punchng.com
The Managing Director of Eterna Plc, Mr. Olumide Adeosun, has said that Nigeria’s clean cooking targets may remain out of reach unless urgent steps are taken to address the high cost of liquefied petroleum gas cylinders and expand access to affordable financing for end-users.
Speaking at the just-concluded NAEC summit in Lagos, Adeosun noted that while compressed natural gas is gaining increased government attention, LPG consumption has stagnated despite its critical role in achieving health and environmental goals.
The high cost of gas bottles, he said, discouraged women in rural areas from adopting clean cooking, as they depend on firewood for cooking.
“If we look at CNG and LPG, CNG is getting a lot of attention today. I think we can all agree that it is the future of heavy goods transportation in Nigeria. But the space I would like to speak to is around LPG. Five years ago, Nigeria was going to be a five-million-tonne-per-annum country in terms of consumption by 2025, but the numbers have actually gone down,” Adeosun said.
He explained that the problem is not due to low production but the inability to deliver gas to households because of limited funding for grassroots access.
“It’s not because we’re not producing enough. It’s because we’re not getting gas down the last mile where it needs to be used. People need bottles to cook. You cannot cook off a plant or a skid. You cook off a 3 kg or 12.5 kg cylinder, and we need to figure out a finance pathway for end-users to be able to afford the bottles,” he noted.
Adeosun commended Techno Oil for setting up a 500,000-bottle-per-annum plant but stressed that more targeted investment is required to make gas accessible at the domestic level.
“We know the money is there. We need to be in a position where, as a country and as an industry, we create a bankable business case and figure out how to fund it. If those bottles don’t exist, then we’re really not going to be able to do much,” he said.
The Eterna chief said the company is focusing on meeting customers at their point of need, particularly at the retail level, to ensure reliable restocking and support for new users.
“We will channel some of our efforts into looking for innovative ways to deliver LPG access and make it bankable at the domestic level. People are highly mobile. You loan someone a bottle today on the pay-as-you-go scheme, and they disappear tomorrow. You’ve lost your investment, so nobody really wants to undertake that challenge. But until we crack it, we won’t see that forward adoption growth,” he added.
He noted that while more gas projects and bottle manufacturing initiatives are coming on stream from companies like Seplat and Rungas, the real challenge lies in creating effective funding structures for distribution channels.
Adeosun also urged government intervention to support gas adoption through the supply of starter kits, including gas cylinders, stoves and cookers, especially for low-income and rural households.
He further called for policies mandating gas reticulation infrastructure in new and existing residential estates to stimulate structured demand for LPG and CNG.
Without developing last-mile demand centres and distribution networks, Adeosun warned, the key objectives of the ongoing gas penetration campaign might not be achieved in time.