Stories by Peter Uzoho
The price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), popularly called cooking gas, has continued to increase, now climbing to N2,000 per kilogramme in many Lagos retail outlets, while big gas plants sell at N1,700/kg.
The surge has triggered long queues at filling stations and forced many families to revert to charcoal and firewood.
THISDAY’s visit to one of Gasland’s LPG plants on LASU-Igando Road, Lagos showed a long queue of consumers waiting to fill their cylinders amid grumbling over the hike in price.
On the company’s price board, 2kg goes for N3,400; 6kg was sold at N10,200 while 12.5kg was sold at N21,250, a sharp jump from N12,000-N13,000 recorded earlier in 2025. A simple calculation showed that at the rate, a minimum wage earner spending N70,000/month would use over one-third of her income just to cook.
The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM), one of the umbrella bodies of cooking gas marketers, has warned that erratic supply and rising depot costs were pushing prices beyond reach.
In a recent statement jointly signed by its National President, Edu Inyang and the Executive Secretary, Bassey Essien, NALPGAM said marketers now pay N25.2 million to N26.2 million to buy 20 metric tonnes of LPG from supplies.
“The citizens of Nigeria now have to buy cooking gas, which should be a social commodity, at a prohibitive cost of over N1,500 per kilogramme,” the association stated.
Economically, the association said small businesses and food vendors who rely on LPG were being squeezed out, adding that the situation has “brought untold hardship to millions of Nigerian households, small businesses, food vendors, and low-income families”
“With a 12.5kg refill now costing N25,000, many consumers have suspended purchases,” it said.
NALPGAM cautioned that the situation “could trigger public unrest and undermine years of government efforts to promote clean cooking energy through increased LPG penetration”.
However, energy analysts and industry players point to three interlocking problems hindering LPG supply including insufficient offtake infrastructure, weak enforcement of reforms, and sharp practices by importers and suppliers.
Data from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) shows that local production from refineries and gas processing plants accounted for the bulk of supply between April 2025 and April 2026.
Yet NMDPRA’s own data puts daily local supply at only 3,300 to 4,500 tonnes, far below demand from Nigeria’s 237 million population. Energy analyst, Aisha Mohammed of the Centre for Development Studies, warned that rising LPG prices were “bringing families back to the era of firewood and charcoal”.
She noted that smoke from charcoal and firewood causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is “very endemic to women”. Environmentalists observed that a shift back to biomass will accelerate deforestation and desertification.
Nigeria holds about 215 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, ranking 9th globally. Yet, over over half of its population still lacks access to clean cooking fuels.
Despite the Decade of Gas policy, last-mile distribution, storage facilities, and enforcement of domestic supply obligations have remained weak, making it difficult for more volumes of LPG to get to the consumers.
