In Rivers State, a kilogram of cooking gas now costs between N1,800 and N2,400 at retail outlets, depending on location. For many households, the increase has reduced the amount of gas purchased per fill-up, forcing adjustments in how families plan and budget for daily cooking.
Vendors in Port Harcourt and surrounding areas confirm the new price range, citing higher supply costs. Mega stations offer marginally lower prices, between N1,600 and N1,750, but they are rarely accessible to the everyday consumer living far from large distribution hubs.
This yawning price gap is not a market quirk. It is evidence of a system that has abandoned the ordinary Nigerian.
The bitter irony is inescapable. Nigeria holds one of Africa’s largest proven gas reserves, produces more cooking gas than ever before, and has the Dangote Refinery active in the supply chain. Yet millions of households, disproportionately in communities like those across Rivers State, cannot afford to cook a meal. This is not a resource problem. It is a policy failure hiding in plain sight.
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The national picture confirms it. Sixty-two per cent of Nigeria’s total gas output in the first two months of this year was exported, leaving just 38 per cent for domestic consumption. National demand has already climbed to 1.8 million metric tonnes in 2026, comfortably outpacing a domestic supply capped between 1.55 and 1.65 million metric tonnes.
Producers are chasing export dollars while Nigerians are left scrambling at the pump. The gap is not incidental; it is structural, deliberate, and entirely avoidable.
Global pressures have sharpened the wound. As crude prices breach $100 per barrel and tensions around the Strait of Hormuz disrupt shipping routes, the consequences filter down to Nigerian pump prices. The Dangote Refinery and other domestic facilities have offered no meaningful buffer; Nigeria’s fuel pricing remains anchored to international crude costs and imported feedstocks. Every spike in global supply anxiety translates directly into higher gantry prices at home.
The price of cooking gas has risen by 335 per cent over a decade, from N400 per kilogramme in 2016 to N1,741 in 2026. But global shocks do not excuse domestic negligence.
Beneath all of it lies a rotting infrastructure deficit. Nigeria lacks sufficient gas-processing plants, storage terminals, and distribution networks to convert its vast reserves into an affordable, accessible supply.
The technical capacity exists; NLNG, Seplat, Pan Ocean, and others have proven as much. What is absent is political will.
The path forward is not complicated: expand gas-processing capacity, commission more storage terminals, reform domestic supply incentives, and enforce policies that place local consumption ahead of export revenue. Rivers State residents, and Nigerians broadly, should not be paying crisis prices in a country drowning in gas wealth. A nation that exports its abundance while its citizens cannot afford to cook has its priorities dangerously inverted.
