The Federal Government has said that vehicle owners are expected to pay N250,000 to convert vehicles from petrol to gas usage.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, The Technical Adviser on Gas Business and Policy Implementation to the Minister of State for Petroleum, Justice Derefaka, said that the cost of vehicle conversion would be borne by vehicles owners, adding that the conversion process would be done at various conversion centres across the country.
He said, “The conversion of your vehicle is not something that will take three weeks or seven days; it will take you around seven to eight hours because they (technicians) need to do a diagnosis of your vehicle to see if it is fit for conversion. After that, they will test for roadworthiness and then proceed.
“The owner of the car basically will decide to say I want to run on autogas or CNG or LNG and like the honourable minister had mentioned before, conversion has basic strands.
“You can partner with your bank and the bank will now agree with the conversion centre to convert your vehicle, not for free entirely.”
Speaking on the approaches of payment, Derefaka said that efforts were ongoing to introduce a mechanism that allow installment payment for the conversion kit, whereby deduction of a certain sum would be made at the point of gas purchase.
“The installer will now put some form of mechanism that each time you buy the gas; a certain amount will be deducted to pay for the conversion kit.
“Some people will say it is too expensive but I don’t think it is because within a period of five to seven months, you’ve already paid off the cost.
“The cost varies, it depends on the cylinder of the vehicle but on the average, it is around N200,000 to N250,000 and this is for a four-cylinder vehicle but it becomes a little bit higher for a six-cylinder vehicle.
“If you take your vehicle to some of the centres like the one commissioned yesterday, technicians and original equipment manufacturers are there so you can bring your vehicles for conversion to start running on gas.”
The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, had at the roll-out of the National Gas Expansion Programme on Tuesday assured motorists of steady availability of autogas at competitive prices.
He said the corporation would provide free conversion services in some selected retail stations to help interested motorists switch to motor gas.
He had said, “In support of this effort, the NNPC will provide free conversion services in some selected retail stations to help interested motorists switch to motor gas, especially in areas with existing motor gas service stations in the FCT, Kaduna, Kwara, Kogi, Oyo, Lagos, Delta, Edo, Rivers and Bayelsa states.
“Today, we will be launching five gas powered transit buses and 10 converted buses for some of our agencies and with the continued agreement that we will extend it to one million cars by the end of 2021.”
Kyari noted that the transition from petrol to gas for automobiles had continued to gain acceptance across the world due to the lower cost of gas and its cleaner impact on the environment.
