There’s A New Condition For Gas License – FG

The Federal Government has come out to say that it will stop granting licences to gas companies with no capacity to build pipelines for gas distribution.

The Minister of State for Petroleum (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo recently revealed this to the press, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, he has directed the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, not to issue licenses to anyone who could not pipe CNG to the end users.

He added that the country must transit from fossil fuel to CNG as soon as possible.

His words, “As the Federal Government, we are trying all that we can to ensure we reduce virtual transportation of gas because of the volatility of it, especially with the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano pipeline.

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.

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.

This is better than even fuel if you look at what happened in Port Harcourt where lives were lost and so many vehicles burnt. It is better we go this route.”