Pi-CNG Commissions Fixit45’s Workshop 

for Conversion to CNG-powered Vehicles 

Bennett  Oghifo

T

he Presidential CNG Initiative during the week inauguration of  a workshop built by Fixit45 for the conversion of vehicles from the use of petrol and diesel to compressed Natural Gas (CNG), the first of such facilities in Lagos.

The workshop, located at Ilupeju, Lagos, is also a centre for CNG conversion training and installation that is being done with technical support and collaboration with Mijo Autogas Pvt, India, an original equipment manufacturer.

Chief Executive Officer, Pi-CNG, Michael Oluwagbemi said the nation’s CNG landscape has witnessed tremendous growth in the last six months, saying it was a demonstration of what could be achieved when the government’s efforts are geared towards making life better for the people by enabling good policy.  

Oluwagbemi stated that the government is fully committed to the CNG programme, saying, “We need at least 3,000 workshops like Fixit45 across the country if we want to have this reliable, cheaper and cleaner future we are talking about. We need over 4,000 refueling stations.

“We require more than 400 to 500 major mother stations, as well as CNG plants to extend the current rate of CNG across the country. We need to invest in major transmission pipelines. We need to complete the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK), which is about a $4 billion project that the NNPCL is currently building and other gas projects. We need to connect a critical pipeline system to ensure gas move across Nigeria.

“Some of these are ongoing while others have been completed to ensure that the country achieves its plan of having a million vehicles converted by 2027. So, we are excited to have the inauguration of the first CNG Training & Installation facility here in Lagos.” 

Oluwagbemi said, “We are grateful to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who enabled us to set out on this journey that is now catalyzing into the kind of change and development we are getting in the sector.”

Besides commissioning the workshop, he said, “We have come  to  see some of the interesting things that Fixit45 is doing to set Nigeria on the path of cleaner, safer, cheaper and more reliable source of energy in the transportation sector.

“Nigeria is a gas country with the highest gas reserve in Africa, top seven in the world and, yet, energy poor. The country is the second highest in terms of gas flaring after Russia. All across the Niger Delta, we continue to burn gas. “In the last five years, we have burned gas, equivalent to about $12.5 billion. That is the very definition of waste.

“Indeed, since we have energy riches, gas being in the 30 0f 36 Nigerian states, the reality is that the future of a cleaner, safer and more reliable energy in the transportation sector can only be in the gas sector. So, when the president came in last year, he felt it is not genuine that a country so blessed like us, should still be experiencing energy poverty.

“Every now and then, we have queues for PMS that we import and are equally subsidized. There is not just shortage; there is massive smuggling of that resource that is supposedly subsidized. The money that should have been spent on roads, hospitals, and education is spent rather on subsidizing our neighbours who then enjoy cheap fuel to the detriment of Nigerians who suffer poor infrastructure because sufficient allocation of government resources does not go to those things that matter.

“The government and the President said no, this is no longer tenable. We cannot continue to subsidize poverty, import unemployment and export jobs why we remain energy poor. To change the conversation, the President said it is time for Nigeria to depend on the natural gas that God blessed it with.”

The co-founder, Fixit45, Pankaj Bohhra  said,  “Fixit45 in collaboration with Mijo Autogas Pvt. Ltd, India, renowned CNG Kit manufacturers with credible reputation for excellence is in Nigeria to promote innovative technology. Having been involved in automotive technology, the recent subsidy removal provides us with an opportunity to bring Nigerian youth together so that they can get trained on CNG technology. We believe that the technology when installed in vehicles will lead to operating cost reduction in the long run. It is also an employment generation drive for the youth.

“This is basically what the initiative is for. Since the Pi-CNG is very much active, we just thought we should be the pioneer of the initiative in Lagos. This is the first facility in Lagos State. It is basically CNG conversion. That is what we are inaugurating today. We have completed two training programmes already in Lagos and Abuja.

“We have trained more than 50 youths from seven different states. And this is the official inauguration of the facility. We are currently operating in 11 cities in Nigeria. We work with more than 300 partners who have workshops in these cities across the country. Now that it has been inaugurated, we are going to bring more people on board, make them understand why it is important to use the right technology that we process and then expand it so that the entire CNG installation can scale up. It is not only scaling, maintenance is also important.”

He commended the effort of the Nigerian government so far and urged Pi-CNG to support the organization by sponsoring more Nigerian youth to benefit from the training and a subsidy on installation to Nigerians as a way of contributing to the government’s plan to convert a million vehicles to CNG by 2027.