Nigeria gives condition for approval of gas distribution licences to firms

The Federal Government has promised stringent measures for gas companies seeking gas distribution licences in the country.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, who addressed journalists when he visited the scene of last weekend’s explosion in the Ita Oshin area of Abeokuta, Ogun State, said the federal government would begin to scrutinise the capacity of the firms to build pipelines for gas distribution as a requirement for the issuance of licences.

He said the regulators would henceforth emphasise the issuance of distribution licences that would require the distributors to invest in the installation of pipelines to deliver gas directly to end users — rather than trucking to consumers.

The minister said: “I have directed the authority chief executive that for any further issuance of licence, the company should be competent enough to pipe it to their end users so that we are not exposed to this kind of danger any longer.

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“As a ministry, we are looking at how we can reduce a lot of virtual conveyance of gas.

“That is why we are putting much in developing the gas pipeline infrastructure so that the transportation would not be virtual, but rather through the pipelines. This will reduce this kind of incident and take off the pressure on our roads.”

Ekpo stressed that efforts were being made to prevent the reoccurrence of such accidents in the future.

Some people were killed when a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) truck lost control due to a brake failure and rammed into the road barricade in the Ogun State capital on Saturday.

Several others were injured and properties were destroyed in the incident.

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