The retail price for refilling a 5kg Cylinder of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as Cooking Gas, increased by 12.00 percent from N4,588.75 in January 2023 to N5,139.25 in January 2024.
On a month-on-month basis the price of the product rose by 3.55 percent from N4,962.87 recorded in December 2023.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Cooking Gas) Price Watch for January 2024, reports that Nassarawa recorded the highest average price for refilling a 5kg Cylinder of Cooking Gas with N5,790.00, followed by Jigawa with N5,681.82, and Gombe with N5,660.00, while Kaduna recorded the lowest price with N4,150.00, followed by Ogun and Osun with N4,751.04 and N4,763.53 respectively.
The report also showed that the North-East recorded the highest average retail price for refilling a 5kg Cylinder of Cooking Gas with N5,296.32, followed by the North-Central with N5,240.36, while the South-West recorded the lowest with N4,805.05.
“The average retail price for refilling a 12.5kg Cylinder of the product increased by 1.96 percent on a month-on-month basis from N11,510.16 in December 2023 to N11,735.72 in January 2024. On a year-on -year basis, this rose by 14.19 percent from N10,277.17 in January 2023,” the report said.
On state profile analysis, Cross River recorded the highest average retail price for the refilling of a 12.5kg Cylinder of LPG with N13,040.00, followed by Jigawa with N12,875.00 and Zamfara with N12,725.00.
Conversely, the lowest average price was recorded in Kaduna with N9,699.50, followed by Kwara and Niger with N10,000.00 and N10,400.00 respectively.
Analysis by zone showed that the South-South recorded the highest average retail price for refilling a 12.5kg LPG with N12,602.47, followed by the North-West with N12,224.93, while the South-West recorded the lowest price with N11,189.02.
This steady rise in the price of gas has forced many families to resort to the use of charcoal or firewood as alternative fuel.
The federal government has shown concern about the steady rise in the price of cooking gas in recent months which is worsening the cost-of-living in the country. The government had earlier promised that it was adopting some measures to crash the price of the product, and just recently it announced a ban on the export of LPG from Nigeria.