By Oluseye Ojo
President Bola Tinubu has approved the establishment of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Industrial Park in Nigeria for the country to fully tap into the enough gas reserves that can be used to power vehicles, machines, and other mechanical devices.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Programme Director of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (P-CNGi), Michael Oluwagbemi, made the disclosure after the launch of the Conversion Incentive Programme (CIP) for the CNG in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
According to him, “The President has given an approval, and we are already making the industrial hub a reality. We are working with the Minister of Steel Development, and we are working with friends at NNPC. They have come together with us, and we are putting together the CNG Industrial Park. You will hear more about it as we progress. But we are already inspecting the site. We are already bringing in the companies that are manufacturing the CNG kits…”
Oluwagbemi stated that Nigeria, as a nation “has continued to pay for expensive Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), and diseases that are not only disastrous to our health, but also our finances. The better way is for us to use what we have that is cleaner, cheaper, safer, and more reliable.
“This natural gas is everywhere across the nation; 30 out of 36 states in Nigeria have natural gas reserves. We have enough gas reserves to last us for more than 100 years, as one of the largest gas reserve nations in the world and ranked as number one in Africa.
Speaking on the launch of P-CNGi, Oluwagbemi noted: “What we called Conversion Incentive Programme is basically us implementing what Mr. President promised at his last speech, when he talked about a million Conversion Kits being made available to our commercial vehicle operators. “By this time last year, we had just seven conversion centres in Nigeria. As at today, we have tracked investments of over 120 conversion centres,” adding that the number of registered and accredited conversion centres in the country has moved to 65.