The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, in an attempt to douse anxiety over increasing pump price of petrol, promised Nigerians that government had in the pipeline a measure to convert Nigerian cars to compressed natural gas (CNG-compliant), as an alternative to petrol.
In announcing this last week, the minister argued that “gas… is definitely going to be cheaper than the subsidised rate of PMS.
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“So what we are trying to encourage Nigerians to do now is to convert their cars to dual fuel.
“That means your car can use either gas or petrol and that will be done for free because the government is going to ensure that you are able to convert your vehicles for free.”
The government must admit that the removal of subsidy on petroleum was not properly handled.
If it was a policy of this administration, it should have been put on the table since the last six years, the necessary legal framework worked out, and Nigerians sensitised and mobilised to its imperative.
That was not done.
Ironically, government used COVID-19 pandemic and revenue shortfall as its reason for removing subsidy, at a time when the majority of Nigerians have been impoverished due to loss of jobs, hyper-inflation, and closure of business enterprises.
The minister put the cost of converting a car to dual fuel use capacity at N200,000, but those conversant with the technicality of it say the kit would cost between N300,000 and N420,000.
No doubt, this is very expensive for most car users.
And it beats the imagination that the federal government, which claims to be unable to sustain subsidy on petrol, would spend so much on the estimated 11.8 million cars on Nigerian roads.
As it were, the cost of this conversion is not covered in the 2020 annual budget.
The minister’s promise, in a nutshell, was very spontaneous, without foundation, and absolutely unplanned.
As the minister noted, cars can be converted from fuel to CNG without disrupting the normal petrol process, as all that is needed is for the high compression CNG tank is attached to a regulator that reduces the gas pressure to 125 per square inch (psi).
The fuel is fed to a parallel fuel line to the CNG injectors.
All the driver would need to do is to press a button that switches his car to run between CNG and petrol.
Experts have said apart from lower consumption rate compared to petrol, the use of CNG is friendly to the environment because natural gas combustion delivers 20 percent lower carbon emissions and about 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gases compared with petrol engines.
However, refilling a CNG car can be challenging as it takes time to refill gas because of its very low pressure.
For conversion of Nigerian cars to dual fuel use to be realistic and successful, the government must put in place a clear policy on it.
A reliable policy would, first of all, ensure the availability of CNG in all parts of the country.
Unless this is achieved, the competition for CNG between kitchens and cars could lead to scarcity and price increase.
To ensure CNG availability, government must be decisive about halting gas flaring.
Nigeria loses an average sum of $2.5 billion every year to gas flaring.
In a country that is one of the poorest in the world, it is senseless to flare such huge amount of money due to failure of regulation.
In many developed countries, alternatives to petrol are being looked into, and car manufacturers are adjusting to this new thinking.
For instance, the United Kingdom is phasing out petrol and diesel cars by 2040; France will ban sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2040; Norway will phase them out by 2025, and The Netherlands will do so by 2030.
It is expected that Nigeria’s policy on fuel for cars should be in line with this global trend in which long-term strategies are put in place with timeline, instead of a sudden, haphazard decision that cars would be converted to dual-fuel usage in less than one month.
