FG plans CNG at N250 per litre for mass transit buses

In a bid to make mass transportation more affordable, President Bola Tinubu is projecting a cost of N250 per litre for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) — a more cost-efficient alternative to Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), or petrol after stopping the payment of trillions of naira in fuel subsidies.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, who made a live appearance on Channels Television’s Business Morning on Tuesday, noted this was part of Tinubu’s “very important” Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative.

Ngelale further noted that the policy, chaired by the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, will roll out 11,500 new CNG fuel vehicles in the near term, focusing on mass transit systems across all states of the federation.

According to him, the targets for the initiative are lower-income earners to provide CNG-fuelled buses “and the like that will crash the cost from PMS-fuelled buses at about N620 per litre on average”.

“You’re now looking at about N250 per litre on average for CNG,” he added.

“That’s going to have a massive impact on the ability of the everyday Nigerian going to work and back, going to market and back using mass transit across our states. That’s going to do that in the immediate term.”

The presidential spokesman also drew attention to the immediate rollout of 55,000 new CNG conversion kits for existing PMS vehicles to further accelerate the process of conversion and transition from PMS to CNG.

“But I need to note that it is one thing to deal with the demand side of the CNG equation,” he said.

In dealing with the supply side, the President, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), struck a deal with NIPCO, Ngelale explained.

“[The deal] effectively is going to roll out 56 new CNG filling stations across all states of the federation within the next 16 months — 21 new CNG filling stations within the next nine months and then 35 CNG filling stations between April 2024 and April 2025, which essentially takes us to the midterm of his first term in office,” he said.

“We’re also going to be rolling out an exemption on customs duties as well as VAT exemptions on all importation of CNG conversion kits to further accelerate and cheapen the prices of CNG conversion for families across Nigeria and that is the President’s focus at this time.”