Marketers Association of Nigeria (MEMAN): CNG; Infrastructure, Collaboration, Advocacy Needed For More Investments

The Chief Executive Officer, Major Energies Marketers Association of Nigeria (MEMAN), Mr. Clement Isong, has said that there is need to provide more infrastructure so as to attract more investments for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) usage in the country.

He stated that the disclosure by the Chief Executive Officer of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGI), Michael Oluwagbemi, that the CNG sub-sector has attracted more than $980 million in private investments in just 18 months was a good development.

He spoke in an interview with Ondopress over the weekend. Oluwagbemi had also said that vehicle conversions had risen from 4,000 to nearly 100,000, and added that the CNG programme was Nigeria’s “fastest-growing energy sector”, fueled by government incentives and private sector participation. Isong, who is also Executive Secretary, MEMAN, urged Oluwagbemi and his team to continue in their laudable activities.

He said: “I think they have done very well. I think they have done very well and I think they should continue to continue growing because there is still a lot of infrastructure that we need to have in place for CNG to become readily available to the Nigerian population.

They have done very well but I guess the business class has to prove itself. “There has to be a lot of big trucks have gone into using CNG which, I am told by my friends in the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), is exactly half the cost of using diesel.

So it makes sense. Many of them are buying CNG trucks but they complain that there is inadequate infrastructure across the country and there are inadequate standards that have to be enforced. “You know when you buy petrol, you know what petrol is, you know what you’re going to get, you know what it’s going to give you.

So they need to do some work with respect to the need for more investments to make up for the lack of infrastructure. The pipeline, the equity pipeline, all those things they are doing, they need to continue because all those infrastructure will help in the early adoption by motorists, more importantly, because it makes more sense if you have a truck or you’re in the transportation business for you to move immediately to it.

“If you have your own car and the only place you drive to is short track, back or your office which is not far, then the motivation to move is not that much. But if you’re in a commercial business or in a distribution business all across the country, then the cost reduction is significant for you. So they need to continue to encourage infrastructure development so that the business case is being made by the people who have bought trucks.” He added: “I have diesel trucks, I have CNG trucks.

The cost of my diesel truck is two times that of my CNG trucks, the operational cost. Everybody’s going to move gradually but when you queue in a station for a whole day, two days before you can exit, it’s not nice. “And then when you don’t get the same quality of service, it’s also not nice. So we need to improve in terms of including more infrastructure, more total stations, more motor stations and more regulation of what happens at the CNG stations.

Okay sir, you brought up one issue that I want to follow up on with this investment.” Isong said a good environment had been created for investment attraction in the subsector as according to him, the government had established an infrastructure fund. He, however, urged the agency to create more awareness about the fund and CNG for more usage. According to him, more advocacy and publicity are also imperative.

He stated that it was necessary for the agency to collaborate with the state and local government as well as the grassroot for more CNG usage. He also stated that working with the road transport union and help them convert their petrol or diesel powered vehicles to CNG would help them build the ecosystem.

Isong said: “I think they have done a lot to engender a favorable environment for the investment because the truth is that there is an infrastructure fund which is, if you are looking for money to enter the investment, then you can go to the authority which has that money for infrastructure funds. But it’s not a specialized area. It’s not something that anybody on the street can go and enter that business. That’s the challenge.