Nigeria: a registry for every LPG cylinder, and households going back to wood
Nigeria is launching a national LPG cylinder recirculation programme: each cylinder gets a digital identity, existing cylinders are checked at authorised facilities and exchange goes through approved retailers. At the same time, Nigeria's Clean Cooking Forum heard that families who moved to gas are going back to wood. Two complementary pieces of information for neighbouring Cameroon: where the cylinder is, and when it will be empty.
What is the national cylinder recirculation programme?
On 23 October 2026, in Lagos, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) announced the National Cylinder Recirculation Programme, with the downstream regulator (NMDPRA) and the National Council on Climate Change (ThisDay, 29 October 2026). The programme sets out to tackle an old problem: expired, damaged, uncertified or poorly maintained cylinders in circulation.
At its heart is a national registry. A digital system, supplied by the company FuelTree, gives each cylinder a unique identity and records the stages of its life: registration, inspection, requalification, filling, distribution and exchange. According to SON's Director General, Ifeanyi Chukwunonso Okeke, safe LPG use depends on more than access to gas: it requires cylinder quality standards and lifecycle tracking across the supply chain.
How does a cylinder enter the registry?
Cylinders already in circulation go through authorised requalification facilities. Those that meet the standards go back into circulation; the others are withheld for repair or disposal. Households exchange their cylinder at approved retailers, and the collected cylinders are sent for inspection. The stated aim is to replace unsafe cylinders progressively without making it harder to get a compliant one.
The stakes are concrete. Bassey Essien, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Association of LPG Marketers (NALPGAM), explains that a cylinder has a lifespan and must leave circulation once it is exceeded. He keeps a 60-year-old cylinder in his secretariat as a specimen. The distributor Better Gas, which runs cylinder swapping in Abuja, is already among the participating operators.
The programme also mentions, in time, carbon credits to help fund cylinders for low-income households, subject to approved methodologies, independent verification and regulatory approval. After Lagos, the rollout is planned in phases across the country's six geopolitical zones, with an international presentation planned at COP31 in Antalya in November.
Why are households going back to wood?
On 28 October, in Abuja, Nigeria's Clean Cooking Forum focused on financing the transition. According to Leadership (30 October 2026), the Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, represented by an official of his ministry, summed it up: ambition without finance will not deliver the transformation. He recalled that Nigeria's Energy Transition Plan makes clean cooking one of its five pillars, with a shift to LPG, improved biomass, biogas and electric cooking.
Ewa Otu Eleri, who chairs the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cooking, gave the most telling observation. Urban and semi-urban families who moved from charcoal and wood to LPG over the past two or three years are “climbing down the ladder” back to wood. He attributes this to the removal of the fuel subsidy and to disruptions in global energy markets.
Supply, for its part, is growing. According to regulator data cited by Vanguard (28 October 2026), domestic LPG supply rose 17.78% year on year in September 2026, driven by local production. But Colman Obasi, president of the industry's service providers' association, warns that more volume does not guarantee better access without efficient distribution all the way to consumers.
What does this tell Cameroon?
Cameroon also runs on recirculation: the household exchanges an empty cylinder for a full one, and the cylinder passes through the filling plant, the distributor and the agency. Nigeria's registry answers a first question: where each cylinder is, and what condition it is in. The second question remains open in both countries: how much gas is left in the kitchen, and when will it need refilling? Not knowing is often what leaves a household empty and reaching for charcoal (see why connect the cylinder).
MyGaz handles that second question. The UltraSense sensor estimates the gas level from under the cylinder, without changing the marketer's cylinder, and the MyGaz app shows the household the estimated days left so it can order in time from a delivery agency. MyGaz measures the gas level, not leaks: cylinder safety depends on standards and checks such as those Nigeria is putting in place, and on the habits set out on our gas safety page.
Sources
ThisDay, “SON, Government, Industry Stakeholders Launch National Cylinder Recirculation Programme to Advance LPG Safety, Economic Growth, Clean Cooking”, 29 October 2026.
Leadership via allAfrica, “Nigeria Needs More Capital for Clean Cooking Transition, Minister”, 30 October 2026.
Vanguard, “Cooking gas supply rises 18% to 4.5m litres daily, NMDPRA”, 28 October 2026.
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