Nigeria’s fresh cooking gas crisis is again exposing one of the country’s deepest contradictions: Africa’s largest oil and gas producer still struggles to provide affordable energy to its own citizens.
Over the past two days, industry groups and retailers have raised alarm over another sharp rise in the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), with cooking gas now selling for between ₦1,500 and ₦1,700 per kilogram in many parts of the country — levels marketers say are becoming unbearable for households and small businesses already battered by inflation and rising living costs.
The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) warned that the surge risks reversing years of progress in Nigeria’s transition away from firewood and charcoal.
“It is sad and rather very pathetic to inform the general public that Nigerians have woken up to buy cooking gas, which should be a social item, at a prohibitive cost of over ₦1,500 per kilogram,” the association’s president, Edu Inyang, said in a statement.
The association blamed the spike on the high cost that marketers pay for bulk gas supply. He said marketers now pay between ₦25.2 million and ₦26.2 million for a 20-metric-tonne truck of LPG, depending on location, amid supply shortages, high depot prices, logistics bottlenecks and rising operating costs.
The latest increase comes at a particularly difficult moment for millions of Nigerians still grappling with the fallout from petrol subsidy removal and naira devaluation. While operators point to global market pressures, especially tensions around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, many consumers are questioning why prices continue to climb even as the naira has shown relative stability in recent months compared to the severe volatility seen in 2023 and 2024.
The crisis has revived broader concerns about Nigeria’s energy model: a country with one of the world’s largest gas reserves remains heavily dependent on imported refined energy products and vulnerable to international shocks.
Industry experts say that despite Nigeria’s abundant gas resources, structural weaknesses continue to keep domestic energy expensive.
“The problem is part of the entire energy paradox of Nigeria, where a very wealthy country struggles to supply energy resources to its people at a reasonable price,” energy law expert Dayo Ayoade told Daily Trust.
He linked the latest increases partly to global tensions in the Middle East and domestic supply-chain constraints but said deeper problems remain unresolved, including poor transport infrastructure, insufficient LPG processing facilities, inadequate storage capacity and weak local manufacturing.
“The whole energy poverty that Nigerians are suffering — when you combine this with the failure of the power sector and the cost of buying PMS — it becomes choking,” he said.
The renewed price surge also threatens Nigeria’s clean cooking ambitions at a critical moment. Nigeria pledged at the 2024 Africa Clean Cooking Summit to work toward universal access to clean cooking by 2030. But with LPG increasingly out of reach for many families, marketers say households are already returning to dirtier fuels.
NALPGAM warned that the trend could worsen deforestation, environmental degradation and public health problems associated with smoke from firewood and charcoal.
“For years, government and industry operators have worked to move Nigerians away from unsafe fuels. Those gains are now under serious threat,” the association said.
The warning reflects a broader affordability crisis across Nigeria’s energy sector. Electricity tariffs have risen sharply for some consumers, petrol prices remain elevated after subsidy removal, and diesel costs continue to strain transport and logistics.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s LPG market had actually shown signs of growth in recent years. Arise News reported that domestic supply improved significantly, with local producers including Nigeria LNG and the Dangote refinery helping local supply account for about 87 percent of cooking gas consumed in 2025. Consumption also reportedly rose from 900,000 metric tonnes in 2021 to about two million metric tonnes this year.
Yet despite that growth, affordability remains elusive.
Retailers under the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Retailers Association of Nigeria (LPGAR) blamed continued dependence on imports, high depot prices and logistics costs for the latest increases.
“Since Nigeria imports a huge chunk of LPG, a weak naira directly translates to more expensive gas at the ports,” LPGAR chairman Ayobami Olarinoye told EnviroNews.
He also pointed to rising diesel prices, which increase the cost of transporting LPG nationwide.
Marketers are now urging the federal government to intervene by increasing domestic LPG allocation, improving distribution systems and ensuring more local supply is sold in naira.
Without that, Nigeria’s clean energy transition, already fragile under worsening economic hardship, risks slipping further out of reach for millions of households.
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