BEVERLY HILLS, June 13, (THEWILL) – Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that during his administration, he had planned to develop the nation’s natural gas for use by vehicles so as to reduce the country’s dependence on imported petrol.
Noting that he gave out licences to companies in a bid to achieve this, the former President stated that had the plan seen the light of day, 50 per cent of the vehicles in the country would have been running on gas by now.
He made this disclosure on Sunday during a courtesy visit by the management of Nipco Plc to him at his Presidential Hilltop residence in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
The Obasanjo administration had in 2006 given out licences to three companies, Nipco Plc, Contact Global and Global Steel, for the development of Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, for vehicles. But report has it that only Nipco had invested significantly in the project since then.
While reacting to comments by the Nipco Managing Director, Mr. Venkataraman Venkatapathy, the ex-president said, “When I gave the licence in my time, the idea was to use what we had and by now, we could have put half of all the vehicles on gas.”
Venkatapathy had earlier said the replacement of petrol by the CNG would save Nigeria the much-needed foreign exchange on importation of petrol, adding that, “The CNG is a superior auto fuel alternative to liquid fuels mainly petrol and diesel, specifically for countries like Nigeria, which is blessed with abundant (over 186 trillion cubic feet) availability of natural gas that remains untapped.
“To replace 20 per cent of the current petrol consumption of Nigeria, natural gas required is less than five per cent of the total domestic gas consumed currently and less than one per cent of the current gas production. Foreign exchange saved will be close to $2bn,” he said.
