Chief Executive Officer of DPR, Sarki Auwalu, gave the advice when the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, paid an official visit to the headquarters of the department in Lagos.

Auwalu said vehicle owners could also use Liquefied Natural Gas (LPG) as alternative, which covers more kilometres on a comparative basis.

He said the gas products, which are cheaper and more effective, were available in Nigeria.

According to him, the petroleum industry regulatory and records maintaining agency is pushing for price freedom so that people can have choices on the type of fuel they want to use.

“The CNG tank will give you the alternative. It is interesting to know that if you buy CNG equivalent of N10,000 to diesel or petrol, the gas will take you to cover more distance”.

“It covers about 1.8 kilometres for every one kilometre that petrol or diesel will take you with the same volume and price”.

“To convert your car from fuel to CNG, you don’t need more than N200,000 and it can even be converted free of charge if you join a network of gas supplier,’’ he said.

The director said that DPR has gotten the Dangote Group to convert most of its fleet of trucks to CNG and the vehicles are performing optimally.

He said the agency “is now talking to the road transport owners and the National Union of Road Transport Workers to take cue from Dangote by converting their commercial vehicles to CNG’’ too.

He said the agency was pushing for the Nigeria gas expansion programme to ensure that filling system is available at filling station where vehicles can buy CNG.

“We are equally pushing to make conversion kits available and this is also an area of new investment and job creation.

“We expect companies to invest in this new area of conversion for vehicle to be using both petrol and CNG.

“This will give Nigerians alternative to fuel and it will save government the huge amount for subsidy and other.’’

Auwalu said that in many countries, filling stations sell three kind of fuel with different prices for people to make their choice base on affordability and type of vehicle.

DPR is pushing for price freedom so that Nigerians can have choices of what kind of fuel they want to use, he said.

The director noted that 2020 has been declared as the ‘year of gas’ and that the government “is introducing policies and programmes to make gas available for different purposes’’.

Responding after a tour of DPR onshore and offshore tracking facilities, the minister hail the management of the department for their contributions to the growing national economy.

Mohammed charged the DPR management to do more of media advocacy for Nigerians to know more of the enormous work the agency is doing. (NAN)