Starting this September, consumers of liquified petroleum gas (LGP) would no longer need to fill their empty cylinders, but exchange them with already filled ones, Curtis Perry Kwabla Okudzeto, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) announces.
The new policy is being rollout under the NPA’s Cylinder Recirculation Module (CRM).
At a media briefing in Accra on Friday, Mr. Okudzeto said customers only needed their Ghana Card, money and empty cylinder(s) in exchange for those filled.
According to him, there was no cap on how many filled gas cylinders one could purchase at a go, but the only difference in the current policy against the former was the cylinders would now be owned by the gas bottling plants.
The Deputy CEO explained that the only reason for which the exchange would require the Ghana Card before purchasing was to register and track unreturned cylinders in consumers’ possession.
“Go and identify yourself at the exchange point, and when you finish using it you bring it back to the exchange point and take another one,” he added.
Similarly, he added that the new policy would not immediately fade out the existing gas stations, but run concurrently till the country was totally covered by the latter.
He said the four bottling plants – three in Accra and one in Kumasi – had the capacity for the current demand of 30,000 metric tonnes a month.
Thus, the bottling plants have a capacity to fill 80,000 cylinders on a daily basis, meanwhile it was 50,000 being consumed a day.
Perry Okudzeto allayed the fears of consumers that the new policy would attract additional fees, adding: “Nothing in the price build up is going to change.”
The NPA is looking to have more bottling plants to come up in order to increase the production capacity, as well as LPG consumption by 50%.
While consumers will not be charged for faulty cylinders, he urged them to take good care of the cylinder; “…the fact that you don’t own the cylinder and the bottling plants owns the cylinder does not mean you can throw it about, kick it, and destroy it.”
He stated that the business module under the CRM was so flexible that petty traders in rural areas could register, train, and operate a well-managed LPG exchange point.
Mr. Okudzeto also encouraged businesses operating under the old framework to seize opportunities that were being presented by the new policy.
However, he mentioned that the new policy was not targeted at bulk consumers.
