The Federal Government has banned the exportation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), popularly called cooking gas, in a bid to increase its domestic supply, and force a crash in the price.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, said on Thursday that LPG producers in Nigeria and key stakeholders in the industry had been told to stop exporting the commodity out of Nigeria, following the recent jump in the cost of cooking gas.

Ekperikpe Ekpo while speaking on the sidelines of the internal stakeholders’ workshop in Abuja, named some international oil companies including Mobil, Shell, and Chevron as producers, stressing that the government was interfacing with them to crash cooking gas prices.

Ekpo said, “With the issue of gas, you have seen the demonstration of the Federal Government by withdrawing all taxes and levies from the importation of gas-related equipment. It is a big incentive.

“On the issue of LPG (cooking gas), we are interacting with the critical sectors to ensure that there is no exportation of LPG. All LPG produced within the country will have to be domesticated. And when this is done, the volume will increase and, of course, the price will automatically crash.

“I’m in contact with the regulator, NMDPRA, we have meetings almost daily with the producers of the gas like Mobil, Chevron and Shell. So there is that hope that things will turn around.

“And that is also why we are having this engagement to know exactly what the problems are so that we can address them once and for all”.

The development comes amid the recent hike in the price of cooking gas, with 12.5kg of gas selling for about N18,000 in Abuja, Lagos, Kano and some other states. As at November last year, the same product sold for less than N9,000.