…Over 1m CNG vehicles to be delivered by 2027
The Federal Government has revealed that it is targeting the creation of over 50,000 jobs and investment worth $2 billion from the Compressed natural gas (CNG) initiative.
The program director, Presidential CNG Initiative, Engr. Micheal Oluwagbemi disclosed this at a stakeholders’ meeting held at MOFI in Bank of Industry, at the weekend, in Abuja.
The meeting was to formalise a partnership with the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology, NITT, and FEMADEC Group, among others, to catalyse sustainable transportation in Nigeria.
Oluwagbemi said the government intends to establish 1,000 conversion workshops across the country, adding that the initiative will help provide over 50, 000 jobs and cushion the effect of subsidy removal.
He explained that there are ongoing plans to launch 55,000 CNG conversion kits for existing PMS-dependent vehicles within the timeframe specified by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said, “Our goal in the presidential CNG initiative, as stated by the President in his October 1 speech is to make 55,000 conversion kits immediately available to the Nigerian public so that we can begin to jumpstart the CNG revolution.
“The palliative program as described by the president is on July 31 speech is here until March 31 of 2024. So, technically speaking, we are expected to roll out 55, 000 within that time frame.
“Given of course naturally, we are quite a bit constrained when it comes to the number of workshops and there’s a reason why we’re here today. We only have seven functional workshops in the country. In our estimate, we need about 1000 to be able to achieve our goal.
“Today, we’re rolling out our initial partnership because there’ll be more partners, and there’ll be more investors in the sub-sector with four, one of them being a national Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology to roll out additional seven workshops in the next 14 days.
“We believe they can do more but what we will have to do is to double what they have in 14 days and from there we can start doubling after 14 days, in that way we can be able to get closer to our goal of having workshops everywhere there is CNG in Nigeria so that we can convert those 55, 000 vehicles.
“We have a goal, one million vehicles by the year 2027 and that allows Nigeria to save about 20 billion dollars in ten years and also allows us to manage transport inflation.
“You will have five people working there in two days. So, if we have 1000 workshops, we are talking about 5000 jobs for technicians, including the cost of the labour and manpower that will go into the increased supply of CNG, processing stations, model stations, and refuelling stations that will not run on this ecosystem.
“So, the number of jobs that will be rolling out under this program, even under the pilot phase in six months, easily with support of about 50,000 jobs, 50,000 jobs that never existed before that will be supported by this program.
Speaking further, Oluwagbemi stated that the cost of conversion could cost between N300,000 to about N600,000, depending on the exchange rate, while assuring that Nigeria would begin to assemble and manufacture CNG conversion kits.
“It costs between N300,000 to about N600,000 to convert to CNG-enabled vehicles. The cost of converting vehicles to CNG depends on the type of car and components such as those that come with four valves, and six or eight valves’ engines. It also depends on the storage capacity of the vehicle that you want to convert as this also determines the range of distance the vehicle can cover.
“For now, we are bringing conversion kits into the country. But, under this initiative that serves as palliative for Nigerians, the government is giving out discounts on the immediate cost of conversion for Nigerians and will also allow slow or part payment over time as the committee continues to review the CNG initiative with more programs on discounts and others.”
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of Femadec Limited, Fola Akinola said the partnership with P-CNGi has been long expected such that the firm can also deploy resources to make sure that Nigerians make good use of their natural gas. “We started the project with our funds. I hope with this take-off, there will be financing structures from banks through the federal government in addition to the P-CNGi intervention”.
On his part, the Special Assistant on Special Duties and Domestic Affairs to Mr President, Toyin Subaru, said, “It is all about substituting import. We spend over 5 billion dollars on petrol to import it and that is what is causing all these subsidy problems that we have.”
“Now, with this, we don’t even have to import what we need to operate our vehicles. It is called CNG and we have the gas here in Nigeria. So, the idea is just to take the gas to distribute it across Nigeria via different truck stations. Most gas are not CNG enabled and what we are doing is to help them convert their cars so you can use petrol and CNG at the same time.
“We are going to develop an app that will enable you where a CNG station is located. We should be able to buy gas for our cars at N230 when today petrol is N680. So, it will help save about two-thirds of your money.”