It has come to light that profiteering by major cooking gas offtakers accounted for the recent scarcity and skyrocketing of prices of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LNG) in Nigeria.

The Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), has disclosed that it sold LNG at N800 per kilogramme to the major offtakers, who turned round to sell to Nigerians at N2,400 per kg, marking up the product by N1,600 during the recent nationwide scarcity.

It said that some of the offtakers were hoarding product at terminals and creating artificial scarcity, a practice that pushed prices far above regulatory benchmarks and inflicted hardship on households across the country.

These facts were shared by the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Adeleye Falade, at the NLNG Facts & Figures Presentation in Lagos.

“What we found out is that a number of people who take products, they will put it in their terminal, and they are part of those that have created the artificial scarcity that has led to the price increase. When the product was being sold at N2,400 per kg in the market, guess how much they were lifting it from us? It was between N800 and N900 per kg,” Falade stated.

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) had recommended that after transportation costs, retail prices should not exceed N1,000 to N1,200 per kg.

“So there’s also some distortion that happened on the sales side, which I know the regulators are working on right now to get control of it,” Falade added.

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The NLNG supplies LPG to the Nigerian market through its vessel, Alfred Temile. More than 15 terminal owners offtake the product as middlemen before selling in bulk to gas plant operators and independent petroleum marketers.

The hoarding at terminal level, according to NLNG’s assessment by one of the big four consulting firms, meant product was not getting to retailers fast enough, tightening supply and inflating prices.

In response, NLNG said it has changed its allocation strategy. “So preference for us is not for those kinds of people, but those that can supply directly to the retailers,” Falade said. The new ranked order prioritises offtakers with storage capacity and a proven direct-to-retail network.

Despite the scarcity at retail level, Falade said NLNG did not have a problem around infrastructure or capability to move its product to the market.

“That’s not a limitation for us… We sell all of our products. We actually have more demand than we’re able to sell. Our challenge was not that people were not able to take the product. Every cooking gas that we made, we had buyers,” he said.

He acknowledged industry-wide infrastructure deficits but said they have not reached the point of stranding NLNG’s output. “There is an infrastructure deficit, but it hasn’t played itself to the point where we become stranded with the product that we have made. No, we haven’t seen it to that extent.”

Annual LPG consumption in Nigeria has grown to 1.8 million tons in 2026 from 1.5 million tons in 2023, underscoring rising dependence on cooking gas as households shift away from firewood and kerosene.

To ease pressure on prices, NLNG said the completion of Train 7 will be the immediate game-changer. The $5 billion project is progressing at Bonny Island in Rivers State with about 16,000 people working daily.

The completion of the Train 7 is going to increase the company’s LNG capacity by 35 per centIt, taking it from 22 MTPA to 30 MTPA. Aside from LNG, the project will also increase NLNG’s LPG production by 50 percent.

Last year NLNG supplied 500,000 tons of LPG to the domestic market. With Train 7 on stream, an additional 250,000 tons will be added annually, taking the total annual supply to 750,000 tons,” the CEO said.

The extra volume is expected to improve availability and moderate the price volatility that has plagued the market in recent months.

Falade said NMDPRA is already working to rein in the LPG market distortion with introduction of NLNG’s ranked offtaker system that is also designed to cut out middlemen who warehouse product instead of distributing it.

Beyond LPG, NLNG said it is fast-tracking a 1.1 MTPA domestic LNG supply project targeted at industries and transport.

The company had in June 2021 announced its plan to begin supplying LNG to the domestic market with an initial 1.1 million metric tons from July 2022. The company went ahead to sign an offtake agreement with three companies including However, that project has been stalled.

Falade said the project remained on course. “We do have a project already working around the domestic LNG supply… It hasn’t changed from the 1.1 MTPA that was declared at that point in time. We are behind on schedule, but we’re still working on it,” Falade said.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has pushed back against criticism of the 2025 oil and gas licensing round.

The Commission argued that reports that portrayed the award of oil blocks as politically influenced distorted a process it described as transparent, competitive and technically driven.

Speaking recently in Lagos at the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Council Executive Masterclass on Energy Journalism at the weekend, the Commission Chief Executive (CCE), Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, represented by Mr. Dr. Amba Ndoma Egba, Deputy Director, Acreage Administration, said some media reports failed to reflect the technical and commercial rigour behind the exercise.

“Others, regrettably, reduced a rigorous and competitive technical process to political speculation and unsubstantiated headlines,”.

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In what appeared to be a direct response to public debate surrounding the recently concluded bid round, the Commission said some reports had unfairly reduced a rigorous regulatory exercise to political speculation, warning that such narratives could weaken investor confidence in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum industry.

She warned that inaccurate reporting could widen the gap between regulatory processes and public understanding of the petroleum industry.

The CCE said the licensing round attracted significant global interest, with 50 blocks offered across onshore, offshore, deepwater and frontier basins.

She explained that, after prequalification, 196 applicants advanced to the technical and commercial stages, while 143 companies submitted 200 bids covering 37 assets before the process culminated in the commercial bid conference held on July 21.

The defence comes days after the announcement of winners in the licensing round, which has drawn scrutiny from industry watchers and commentators. NUPRC said the exercise was designed to meet global standards of transparency and competitiveness and formed part of its broader effort to position Nigeria as an investment-friendly upstream jurisdiction.

Beyond the licensing round, the Commission used the forum to announce a more aggressive transparency strategy. It said it would hold regular technical engagements with energy editors and correspondents and continue publishing oil production data, acreage status, rig disposition and operational performance reports on its website.

“If you do not understand our methodology, you cannot accurately report our outcomes. And if you cannot accurately report our outcomes, the public cannot hold us accountable,” Eyesan said.

NUPRC argued that many controversies surrounding the oil sector stem from poor understanding of technical concepts such as reserve classifications, licensing categories and field development obligations.

The Commission urged journalists covering the industry to seek technical clarification before publishing reports on reserves, production or asset awards. Earlier in his welcome address, the Chairman of SPE Nigeria Council, Mr.Francis Nwaochei, said the Masterclass themed: “Engineering the Narrative: Why Technical Knowledge Matters in Energy Journalism” speaks directly to the role that credible journalism plays in shaping public understanding of Nigeria’s energy industry.

“The stories that appear in our newspapers, on television, online platforms and across social media influence public perception, investor confidence and even policy conversations. That is why accuracy matters,”.

He explained that Nigeria’s energy industry is evolving rapidly, hence today’s conversations extend beyond crude oil production but include gas development, energy security, carbon management, digital technologies, local content, infrastructure development, financing, regulatory reforms and the transition to a lower-carbon future.

He argued that, as the industry becomes more complex, reporting on it also requires greater depth and context.

“This Masterclass is not about turning journalists into petroleum engineers. That is not our expectation. Rather, our goal is to inspire you to become even more effective energy journalists by developing the confidence to ask the right questions, conduct due diligence and present accurate, balanced and well-researched reports,”.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has declared that Nigeria’s domestic gas suppliers delivered an average of 2.05 billion cubic feet of gas per day in the first half of 2026.

It added that the figure represents about 65 percent of the Domestic Gas Delivery Obligation (DGDO) target, which points to the persistent gap between gas allocated for domestic use and the actual volumes delivered to industries, power plants and other local consumers, prompting the regulator to introduce a Gas Swap Framework aimed at improving compliance.

The Commission Chief Executive of the NUPRC, Oritsemiyewa Eyesan, made the disclosure during the recently concluded stakeholders’ workshop on the Gas Swap Framework for DGDO in Abuja.

The workshop, organised by the commission, was aimed at deepening stakeholders’ understanding of the proposed Gas Swap Framework as a practical mechanism to improve compliance with the DGDO and obtain industry input before implementation.

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This was contained in a statement issued on Friday by the Head, Media and Corporate Communications of the commission, Eniola Akinkuotu.

The statement read, “Nigeria’s average Domestic Gas Delivery Obligations performance rose to 2.05 billion cubic feet (Bcf) daily year-to-date ending June 2026.”

Delivering the keynote address through the Executive Commissioner, Development and Production, Enorense Amadasu, Eyesan described the Domestic Gas Delivery Obligation as one of the Federal Government’s most critical policy tools for ensuring that gas produced in Nigeria supports economic growth and domestic industrialisation.

Providing an update on industry performance, she said only 27 out of about 63 producing companies were allocated Domestic Gas Delivery Obligations, while only 23 of the allottees were actively supplying gas to domestic customers.

According to her, average domestic gas delivery stood at 2.05 billion cubic feet per day between January and June 2026 against a 7C1 Domestic Gas Delivery Obligation allocation of 3.16 billion cubic feet per day, translating to a compliance level of about 65 per cent.

Eyesan said the figures showed that allocating more companies to the scheme alone would not guarantee improved domestic gas supply.

She said, “The YTD June 2026 data, however, shows that a broader allocation base does not automatically translate into actual delivery.

“This delivery gap underscores the need for practical, innovative, and market-responsive solutions that protect the integrity of the obligation while enabling real physical delivery of gas to domestic users. It is in this context that the proposed Gas Swap Framework becomes especially important.”

She explained that the proposed Gas Swap Framework was designed to address logistical and infrastructure constraints preventing some producers from meeting their obligations.

According to the commission’s chief executive, the framework will allow operators whose gas is stranded or cannot be easily evacuated to fulfil their DGDO by partnering with operators that already have the infrastructure required to transport and deliver gas to designated domestic customers.

Eyesan said, “With the right commitment and implementation, the framework will help turn obligation into actual supply, make better use of existing assets, support gas-to-power delivery, and build greater confidence in Nigeria’s domestic gas market.”

She urged industry stakeholders to support the initiative, stressing that collaboration between producers, transporters and regulators would be critical to improving domestic gas availability and strengthening Nigeria’s gas value chain.

The DGDO is a regulatory mechanism introduced under Nigeria’s gas policy to ensure that a specified portion of gas produced by upstream companies is reserved for domestic consumption, particularly for electricity generation, industrial manufacturing and other strategic sectors.

The initiative forms part of the Federal Government’s drive to leverage the country’s vast gas reserves to boost economic diversification, deepen industrialisation and improve energy security.

However, industry stakeholders have consistently identified infrastructure limitations, evacuation constraints and commercial challenges as key factors affecting full compliance with the obligation.