Households in Nigeria are facing yet another squeeze as the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) shot up to N1,600 per kilogramme in Lagos yesterday, with consumers in other areas of the Southwest region paying as much as N1,500, adding a fresh burden to families already contending with a spike in transportation costs following recent petrol pump price hike.
However, checks by our correspondents across Lagos, Osun, Oyo and Ogun states found the difference between plant and retail prices, illustrating the extent to which geography, distribution and transportation costs are dictating what consumers will eventually pay for cooking gas, says The Guardian.
At the depots, LPG sold for approximately N1,350/kg in Lagos, N1,300 in Osun, N1,200 in Oyo and N1,400 in Ogun, while merchants sold at about N1,600/kg in Lagos, N1,500 in Osun and N1,300 in Oyo.
At N1,600/kg, a regular 12.5kg cylinder would cost roughly N20,000 to refill for a home in Lagos, whereas the same quantity would cost about N18,750 at N1,500/kg in Osun.
This recent development comes on the back of rising PMS prices and has increased to the financial stress for people adapting to increasing transportation prices.
What customers are concerned about isn’t merely the size of the money needed to refill a cylinder, but the continuous effect of successive rises in core household costs.
Before the current burden of cooking gas came up, a consumer in Lagos, Adesola Omotosho, told our correspondent that households were still grappling with the impact of the PMS price increase and the accompanying increase in transportation costs.
Families now have to use the same income for transportation, food and cooking gas and it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain the consumption habits they had before’, Omotosho added.
“We don’t even know what is happening. A couple of days ago it was about petrol and transportation expense, now it’s petrol. If clean energy is too expensive, then we should go back to kerosene and firewood’, she said.
Also in Osun, Habibah Raheem criticised the increased cost of LPG, saying the increase was becoming another difficulty for people who depend on cooking gas for their daily meals.
Besides families, the burden is also felt by food sellers, restaurants and other small enterprises that use LPG as a key manufacturing input. Any lasting rise in their energy costs could ultimately be transferred to customers as higher prices for prepared food and other services.
However, DAPNIK Gas Plant’s Managing Director, Olatunbosun Oladapo, warned consumers not to see the highest retail pricing as a generalised increase across the LPG market, even while consumers are being charged higher retail rates. “Our plant in Ibadan is selling at N1,150/kg currently and some outlets in Lagos can also sell at about N1,100/kg to N1,150/kg,” Oladapo told The Guardian.
He said some of the pricing difference was due to distribution costs, especially for people buying from distributors located deep inside communities.
There is a distributor that went to the plant to buy, he is also carrying his own transport, his own compensation and everything and he is selling N1,300, he stated.
By the time you include in transportation costs, a consumer who has to go several kilometres to buy a tiny quantity may wind up spending more’, said Oladapo. He consequently called on consumers and the media to differentiate between pricing of plants and prices charged by wholesalers and merchants.
He also warned that news of a broad-based price spike could prompt some marketers to raise their own pricing merely because they thought the market was moving.
If we come out with a report and say the price of cooking gas is going up, you are informing them this is going up. They are already going for N1,500. Let me up mine a little, too,” he said.
Oladapo’s assessment conflicts with some consumers and retailers who are reporting increased pricing. The LPG market is fragmented, and transportation and distribution expenses affect final prices.
But energy lawyer and oil and gas expert, Dr Ayodele Oni gave a different explanation to the continued price pressure, noting that the increased domestic production had not automatically translated into cheaper pricing for the consumers.
“LPG continued to be exposed to international market movements, foreign exchange pressures and logistics costs, meaning that domestic production alone did not necessarily protect consumers from price volatility,” Oni said our correspondent.
“Domestic volume without domestic pricing is a number, not a relief,” he remarked.
He said the worldwide pricing of propane and butane, shipping and insurance charges, the naira and the cost of domestic transportation might all affect the final price paid by Nigerian customers.
Oni also cited the supply gap in the country when data from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) showed that Nigeria supplied 565,106 tonnes of LPG between January and June 18, 2026, compared to a benchmark requirement of 657,072 tonnes, leaving a deficit of 91,966-tonne.
Local sources provided most of the market, with regulator statistics showing domestic supply accounted for approximately 86 per cent of expected demand in the first half of the year.
The new strain on the market comes after a severe supply disruption earlier in the year. Lower local output and stricter import conditions hit the market during the Iran-linked global supply disruption, causing Nigerian LPG demand to drop to a seven-month low of 123,000 tonnes in June, down nearly 23 percent from the March level, Argus data showed.
LPG imports surged to over 46,000 tonnes in June, from 3,000 tonnes in May and zero in April, after the interruption, before the market was somewhat relieved by a fall in international LPG prices and a recovery in domestic output.
Marketers had said the movement was due to a mix of worldwide energy pricing, shipping and insurance, foreign-exchange exposure, domestic logistics and supply availability.
“The immediate challenge is not just to increase domestic production of LPG, but to address the structure through which the product moves from producers and terminals to consumers,” Oni said.
He asked for improved domestic supply arrangements, increased transparency in depot pricing and better storage and distribution facilities. He also cautioned that continued rises could derail Nigeria’s clean cooking transition by compelling low-income households to cut down LPG use or revert to charcoal and firewood.
Atiku says food, gasoline prices fuelling child malnutrition
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s worsening child malnutrition crisis has been decried by former Vise President Atiku Abubakar, who linked it to rising food, transportation and energy costs and warned that economic hardship is increasingly affecting the ability of families to provide adequate nutrition for their children.
In a statement yesterday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku referenced recent nutrition numbers that showed that 41.1 percent of Nigerian children under five are stunted while 19.2 percent are severely stunted. The situation in the Northwest is worse, where 58.2 per cent of youngsters are stunted, he said.
“The Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN) recently expressed concern about the level of malnutrition, saying close to two million Nigerian children are affected by severe acute malnutrition and only about two in 10 are being treated.
Atiku said the numbers should be seen in light of the challenges on homes, as the cost of food and other commodities continues to take up a big share of family finances.
“This is the most heart-breaking aspect of the cost of living crisis. Behind every number is a Nigerian mother, deciding what her children can eat, how much they can eat and how often they can eat. A child doesn’t understand the numbers of inflation. “A child only knows if there is food on the table,” he remarked.
The ADC presidential candidate said the high prices of energy and transport have effects beyond the price paid at the filling stations, as they affect the cost of transferring agricultural produce, running small enterprises and delivering commodities to markets.
“When fuel goes up in price, it is expensive to ship tomatoes from the farm. Selling rice at the market is costly. It’s expensive transporting youngsters to school. “And that extra cost ultimately comes out at the dinner table,” he added.
Food inflation is currently at 19.57 per cent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The World Bank has also pointed out that increasing petrol prices can directly lower household purchasing power and can also be passed on to other products and services, especially transportation.
Atiku said his proposed involvement in the petroleum sector was aimed at alleviating those cost constraints through what he termed a production subsidy rather than a return to the previous regime of subsidising imported petrol.
“The proposal would have a cap, be openly budgeted and independently audited with the larger goal of lowering energy and transportation costs and boosting domestic production,” he said.
“I want to spend less to get the produce to market for the farmer. I want the trader to spend less on transportation of products. I would like the bus driver to purchase less fuel. I want parents to have more money left over after transportation so they can put nicer food on the table’, he continued.
He also urged for increased funding for treatment of chronically malnourished children and better maternal and child nutrition programs, saying nutrition budgets must reach vulnerable populations.
The statements come as Nigeria continues to deal with the societal effects of economic reforms adopted since 2023, including the removal of the petrol subsidy and foreign exchange liberalisation.
The changes have contributed to achieving macroeconomic stability but have also exerted considerable short-term pressures on households, highlighting the need for enhanced social protection for poor and economically vulnerable Nigerians, the World Bank stated.
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