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By Adewale Sanyaolu
To deepen the use of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles and boost safety among users, the federal government has announced plans to develop the Nigeria Gas Vehicle Monitoring System (NGVMS).
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Mr.Ekperikpe Ekpo, disclosed that at the Practical Nigerian Content (PNC) Forum which ended in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, last week.
The NGVS is be spearheaded by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in collaboration with the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas Initiative(PICNG) and other relevant government agencies.
The NGVMS platform, currently in its final stage of development, will enable centralized monitoring and surveillance of CNG systems across the country.
It aims to ensure that only vehicles equipped with certified conversion kits can access gas at retail outlets, promoting safety and compliance with the CNG sector.
The Minister explained that gas will be the mainstay of Nigeria’s energy shift, assuring that government is giving local businesses a chance to engage in gas distribution, processing, and power generation.
He added that the probable replacement for PMS has also been determined to be natural gas in the form of CNG.
“In order to encourage other solutions and alternatives to the massive payout from the nation, the President’s inauguration speech prohibited further fuel subsidy payments. The Presidential CNG Initiative has greatly advanced the nation’s cause of switching from PMS to CNG-powered engines. He added that the CNG Mandate of Mr. President includes; incentive adoption of CNG for mobility which allows deploying and financing CNG vehicles for mass transit, distributing CNG conversion kits at discount and providing conversion incentives including training, facilitation of Investments to involve the role of PICNG to facilitate investments in the CNG sector to plug the conversion workshop, infrastructure and CNG supply gaps.
Also, he noted that the PICNG is to enable the regulatory process for CNG to ensure zero incidences while allowing rapid adoption.
So far, Ekpo hinted that the initiative has achieved some tremendous metrics worthy of celebration while offering significant public/private partnerships for enterprises that desire to do business in the CNG space.
“Over $450 million has been invested in the CNG sector covering infrastructure, conversion centres and platforms, 65 Mother Stations in various stages of development, 88 New Daughter stations in development with 26 per cent completion, over 145 New Conversion Centres deployed with additional 90 in construction phase. More than 150,000 kits acquired nationwide, 34, 000 conversions stimulated, 5808 CNG & EV platforms acquired via Ministry of Finance and over 1000 conversion technicians trained’’.
He said the Ministry is working with the NCDMB to ensure that Nigerian companies are prioritized in the manufacture of components for pipelines, refineries, gas facilities, CNG stations, conversion centres, training facilities and instructors.
Through the Midstream, Downstream, Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF), he disclosed that the administration of Mr. President has empowered six local companies in the gas value chain to the tune of N122 billion.
These amounts, he said, serve as the Federal Government’s equity in these businesses to help derisk the investments and further enhance the speedy completion of the various gas midstream and downstream projects aimed at pushing gas to the final end users and thus enhancing the consumption and utilization of Natural gas in the country.
