Nigeria Cooking Gas Crisis: Scarcity and High Prices Worsen Food Inflation

 LAGOS, NIGERIA — Funmilayo Adebayo, a mother of four living in the Ijagemo area of Lagos State, stares at her empty 12.5-kilogram liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder with a sense of dread. For years, cooking gas was her dependable, clean partner in the kitchen. Today, it represents a luxury she can no longer afford.

"The last time I went to refill, I was shocked," Adebayo says, her voice strained with emotion. "At nearly ₦2,000 per kilogram, refilling this cylinder completely means taking food right out of my children’s mouths. We have to calculate everything now."

Adebayo’s dilemma is fast becoming the baseline reality for millions of Nigerians. A severe and worsening cooking gas scarcity across the country has sent retail prices soaring, with a single kilogram of gas now trading between ₦1,500 and ₦2,000 depending on the location. This energy crunch is colliding head-on with an already brutal food inflation crisis, trapping families in a devastating paradox: even when they can scrape together enough money to buy food, they cannot afford the gas required to cook it.

A Double-Edged Inflationary Squeeze

The timing of the current supply shock could not be worse. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) confirms a relentless month-on-month surge in LPG pricing. The average retail price for refilling a 12.5kg cylinder jumped from ₦19,652 in March to well over ₦22,382 by May—with real-world spot prices in major urban centers like Lagos, Abuja, and Katsina frequently crossing the ₦25,000 mark.

This spike has created an immediate ripple effect across Nigeria’s vast informal food sector. Small business operators, roadside food vendors, and local restaurants depend heavily on gas to stay operational. When the price of their primary fuel doubles, they are left with two grim options: pass the cost on to already impoverished consumers or shut down entirely.

"I use gas every single day for my food business," says Rukayat Bello, a roadside food vendor in Isolo. "Customers complain bitterly when we reduce portion sizes or raise the price of a plate of food, but they don't see what we face at the gas filling stations. Our profit margins are completely gone."

Consequently, meals that require longer cooking times—such as beans, a primary source of protein for low-income households—are gradually disappearing from family menus simply because the fuel cost to prepare them is too high.

Anatomy of a Strained Supply Chain

Despite official assurances of domestic gas abundance, industry operators paint a much bleaker picture of the structural issues playing out behind the scenes. The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) recently raised an alarm over a crippling supply deficit at major coastal depots.

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According to recent factsheets from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Nigeria’s domestic LPG market is operating on razor-thin margins, occasionally maintaining as little as 13 days of national stock sufficiency. Average national demand hovers around 4,818 metric tonnes per day, while actual daily supply often falls short at roughly 4,545 metric tonnes.

"The market is under immense pressure because domestic supply simply isn't matching demand," notes an independent energy analyst based in Lagos. "We are seeing severe loading bottlenecks at the depots. When only one or two terminals are actively loading product in the entire Lagos hub, a massive distribution vacuum is created nationwide."

Compounding the problem are external and macroeconomic pressures. While domestic production from local refineries like the Dangote facility has stepped in to buffer the market, Nigeria remains tethered to global LPG pricing benchmarks and foreign exchange volatility. Recent geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have disrupted international logistics, driving up the cost of imported vessels and further inflating spot prices at local depots.

The Environmental and Public Health Toll

Perhaps the most tragic casualty of the current gas crisis is Nigeria’s decades-long push toward clean household energy. Priced out of the gas market, millions of households are quietly sliding backward, reverting to dirty alternatives like charcoal, kerosene, and firewood.

NALPGAM National President, Mr. Edu Inyang, has openly warned that this massive shift threatens to derail the country’s environmental sustainability goals and trigger a serious public health setback. Respiratory issues linked to indoor smoke inhalation—primarily affecting women and young children—are expected to climb as urban and rural communities alike resort to open-fire cooking.

The socio-economic tension is also reaching a boiling point. Marketers have expressed genuine concern that if the federal government does not urgently intervene to stabilize supply, public frustration could spill over into unrest targeting retail outlets.

A Call for Decisive Intervention

Nigeria’s food security cannot be separated from its energy security. Empty gas cylinders are directly translating to hungry households, forcing families into impossible compromises between nutritional quality and basic survival.

Addressing this multi-layered crisis will require more than temporary price caps. Energy experts agree that the federal government must urgently resolve the structural logjams paralyzing coastal storage and terminal operations. There must also be a concerted effort to optimize domestic gas allocation channels, ensuring that locally produced gas takes absolute priority over speculative international exports.

Until these distribution bottlenecks are aggressively dismantled, the fire in Nigeria’s kitchens will continue to grow colder, leaving a vulnerable nation to bear the heavy weight of a combined food and energy emergency.