The Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas (PCNGi), yesterday commissioned a CNG Tricycle assembled plant.
The assembly plant built by TGIS Luojia Corporation, and located in Sagamu, Ogun State, has the capacity to produce a minimum of 30,000 CNG-based tricycles per year.
Speaking at the commissioning, Chief Executive Officer, P-CNGi, Mr. Michael Oluwagbemi, said that the event signals the commencement of distribution of 5,000 CNG-based tricycles across the country as promised by the President under the CNG initiative.
He said: “At these particular events here we are celebrating the flagging off, of the assembly of the tricycles that were acquired under the Presidential CNG initiative (P-CNGi) with respect to rolling out these tricycles nationwide, in the next few months.
“This is the plant where it is going to be assembled, working with a consortium of Nigerian assemblers and their international counterparts Luojia Corporation of China.
“We expect at least 5000 tricycles to roll off these brands, under the first phase of our program. But in the next few weeks, we already expected the first batch of 2,500 as we promised.
“They are already on ground, as you can see a bunch of them are piled up inside the factory and they will be assembled in the next few weeks and you will start seeing them around somewhere in your neighbourhood across Nigeria, at least within the immediate range states.
“We expect that these tricycles will deliver cheaper transportation for Nigerians, especially at the bottom of the pyramid.
Speaking on the capacity of the plant, CEO of TGIS Luojia Corporation, Mr Damilola Agboola, said: “This factory has the ability to assemble 120 tricycles per day that are CNG based, with a capacity to assemble 30,000 tricycles in a year. “And that is not operating at maximum capacity yet.
“With maximum capacity, the number of tricycles that can be rolled out from this facility will ultimately go up. This facility is also an opportunity for job creation. This place will have at least 60 direct jobs and you can expect a factor of 10 for indirect jobs”.
