The consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), a commodity mainly for domestic use, has grown significantly in West Africa over the last ten years.
Demand for the commodity has almost tripled in the past decade, increasing from 813,500 metric tonnes in 2012 to over 2.3 million tonnes in 2021.
This represents a 16 per cent growth rate in 2021 from a growth rate of 6 per cent in 2012.
In Ghana, the LPG consumption rate stands at 36.9 per cent.
This was revealed by Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, CEO of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), at the opening of the 3rd West Africa LPG Expo in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
The event attracted exhibitors from over twenty-seven countries in the world.
Touching on the specific growth rate of LPG demand in West Africa, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said Nigeria accounts for the highest share of over 40 per cent, Cote d’Ivoire 22 per cent, Ghana 15 per cent, while Liberia accounts for the least with 0.05 per cent of the total LPG demand in the sub-region.
He added that though West Africa accounts for the second highest LPG demand in Africa, there is still a vast untapped LPG market in West Africa.
Stressing the potential for the West African LPG market, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid referred to CITAC Africa’s report which projected LPG demand to grow over 50 per cent to about 3.5 million tonnes by 2030.
This, he said, is expected to be driven largely by strong population and economic growth.
In addition, there is the potential to increase LPG consumption per capita as livelihoods improve with economic growth.
Touching on countries which have taken steps to increase LPG consumption, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid mentioned Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana as aggressively promoting the use of LPG as clean cooking fuel.
He said Ghana, for example, has rolled out several policies and programmes aimed at improving LPG uptake since 1989.
He said the interventions focused on infrastructural development, improvement in supply and distribution, LPG pricing structure, national standard, safe operational guidelines, rural LPG promotion, and indigenisation of the LPG market.
He said despite these interventions, challenges such as slow uptake in particularly low-income areas, affordability, accessibility, non-adherence to safety requirements by some operators, and old and unsafe cylinders, among others still exist.
To remedy the situation, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said the Government of Ghana, in October 2017, launched the National LPG Promotion Policy to ensure that at least 50 per cent of Ghanaians have access to LPG for domestic, commercial and industrial use by 2030.
The policy is to be driven by the new marketing and distribution model, the Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM).
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com