CNG Scarcity Triggers Long Queues In Lagos As Infrastructure Struggles To Meet Demand
The growing adoption of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles in Nigeria is facing fresh challenges as motorists in Lagos and other major cities experience prolonged queues at refuelling stations due to limited infrastructure capacity.
Commercial drivers, fleet operators and private vehicle owners have been forced to spend hours waiting to refill their vehicles, raising concerns over the country’s preparedness to sustain the Federal Government’s gas-powered transportation initiative.
Energy experts have attributed the situation not to a shortage of natural gas, but to inadequate dispensing stations, limited logistics networks and slow expansion of supporting infrastructure.
Speaking on the development, Executive Director of the Emmanuel Egbogah Foundation, Prof. Wumi Iledare, said Nigeria’s emerging CNG market risked repeating the challenges previously associated with petrol supply if urgent measures were not taken.
Iledare noted that the current pressure on CNG stations was largely caused by insufficient refuelling facilities and weak distribution systems.
He urged the government to reposition the Presidential CNG Initiative beyond a temporary response to fuel subsidy removal, stressing the need for sustained investments in refuelling infrastructure, vehicle conversion capacity, distribution networks and regulatory stability.
“CNG should not be treated merely as a temporary palliative for fuel subsidy removal. Instead, it should be developed on its own economic and environmental merits as a sustainable transportation fuel,” he said.
Energy Partner at Bloomfield Law Practice, Dr Ayodele Oni, also identified infrastructure limitations as the major factor behind the worsening queues.
Oni explained that demand for CNG had grown rapidly, with vehicle conversions exceeding 100,000, while the number of operational refuelling stations remained insufficient.
According to him, the concentration of CNG stations in only a few locations and the reliance on transporting gas over long distances had created supply constraints.
“The bottleneck is delivery capacity, not the resource,” Oni said, noting that Nigeria’s large gas reserves were not the challenge.
He added that motorists experienced the infrastructure problem as fuel scarcity because of delays and limited access to dispensing points.
Providing an assessment of the country’s CNG infrastructure, Oni said available figures showed a significant gap between current capacity and government targets.
He said that while the initiative had cited more than 75 refuelling stations, only a fraction were fully operational, with about 28 of 63 mother and compression stations and roughly 72 of over 175 daughter stations currently active.
Oni estimated that Nigeria presently had between 70 and 100 functional CNG dispensing points nationwide, compared with the 2,322 stations targeted by 2027.
To address the challenge, he recommended faster approval processes to enable existing petrol stations to add CNG facilities, increased investment in compression and liquefied natural gas plants, and improved infrastructure distribution across underserved regions.
He also called for better planning of the programme, stressing that infrastructure development must precede mass adoption.
The rising demand for CNG has been driven by the removal of petrol subsidies and increasing transportation costs, with many Nigerians turning to gas-powered vehicles as a cheaper alternative.
However, stakeholders warned that without matching infrastructure growth with rising demand, persistent queues and supply bottlenecks could weaken public confidence in the government’s CNG transition programme.
