By Dayo Omoogun
The Federal Government says car owners will pay up to N250,000 to have their vehicles converted to run on gas and the charges might even be higher for six-cylinder vehicles.
This was made known by Justice Derefaka, Technical Adviser on Gas Business and Policy Implementation to Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, on Wednesday while speaking on a Channels TV programme, ‘Sunrise Daily’.
Derefaka, who is also the Programme Manager, Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Project, said, “The conversion of your vehicle is not something that will take three weeks or seven days; it will take you around seven to eight hours because they (technicians) need to do a diagnosis of your vehicle to see if it is fit for conversion. After that, they will test for roadworthiness and then proceed.”
On who bears the cost for the conversion of the vehicles, he said, “Who owns the car? The owner of the car basically will decide to say I want to run on autogas or CNG or LNG and like the honourable minister had mentioned before, conversion has basic strands, you can partner with your bank and the bank will now agree with the conversion centre to convert your vehicle, not for free entirely.
“The installer will now put some form of mechanism that each time you buy the gas; a certain amount will be deducted to pay for the conversion kit. Some people will say it is too expensive but I don’t think it is because within a period of five to seven months, you’ve already paid off the cost.
“The cost varies, it depends on the cylinder of the vehicle but on the average, it is around N200,000 to N250,000 and this is for a four-cylinder vehicle but it becomes a little bit higher for a six-cylinder vehicle.”
This disclosure is contrary to the government’s earlier position as stated by the Minister of State, Timipre Sylva, in September, that the conversion will be done for free to cushion the effect of the hike in the pump price of fuel in the country.
Speaking further, Derefaka said vehicle owners could take advantage of various payment options for the conversion including having an agreement with commercial banks to get their conversion done, adding that some conversion centres have already started.
“If you take your vehicle to some of the centres like the one commissioned yesterday (Tuesday), technicians and original equipment manufacturers are there so you can bring your vehicles for conversion to start running on gas.”
He said 50 conversion centres will be upgraded and by January 2021, there will be conversion centres across the six geopolitical zones of the country adding that when effectively operational the move will reduce carbon emissions as well as cut down on the demand for petrol.