NIGERIA – Nigeria’s Federal Government has inaugurated an Autogas and Natural Gas Vehicles Committee with the aim of driving up the adoption of gas as an alternative fuel for vehicles in Nigeria.

According to a report by Punch Nigeria, the adoption of gas as an alternative fuel will lead to the rise of two new categories of vehicles: Autogas vehicles and natural gas vehicles.

The Autogas vehicles would be powered by Liquified Petroleum Gas, while those grouped as natural gas vehicles would use Compressed Natural Gas as alternative fuel.

The Autogas and Natural Gas Vehicle committee is a sub-committee of the National Gas Expansion Program whose task is to promote natural gas usage in Nigeria thereby creating alternative fuel choices for Nigerians.

The NGEP was charged to reinforce and expand domestic gas supply to stimulate demand through an efficient and effective mobilisation and utilisation of all available assets, resources and infrastructure.

The chairman of the committee, Mohammed Ibrahim, said increased utilisation of CNG/LNG would provide a conducive environment for investors adding that CNG/LNG could be employed to power passenger cars and city buses.

Nigeria’s is one of the top ten nations in the world with huge natural gas reserves.

The nation’s gas reserves are estimated to stand at 187 trillion standard cubic feet of gas (tscf) making it one of the to 10 country’s globally with huge reserves of the precious commodity.

Nigeria’s gas is made up of 98 tscf of associated gas (AG) and 89 tscf of non-associated gas and the combined total of proved, probable and possible reserves is estimated at 300 tscf.

Despite of the huge gas reserves whose worth is estimated to be worth three times the value of Nigeria’s crude oil reserves, gas utilization in the country remains negligible with much of the gas being flared up by gas companies.

In recent years, the volume of gas flared has been significantly reduced and plans have been initiated to put an end to gas flaring in the coming years.

Diverting the gas to more economical use is one of the solutions to the gas flaring problem and the practical steps towards use of the gas as fuel for vehicles will significantly increase the local demand for gas and thus reduce wastage.

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