For motorists accustomed to petrol, running out of fuel is an inconvenience that can often be solved with a simple workaround, buy fuel in a container from a nearby filling station and take it back to the stranded vehicle.
Compressed natural gas (CNG) does not offer that same convenience.
A motorist who exhausts the gas supply far from a refuelling station cannot simply send someone to buy CNG in a plastic keg and return with it. CNG is stored under high pressure and requires specialised storage and dispensing equipment.
That creates an important question for Nigeria’s rapidly expanding CNG programme: what happens when a CNG vehicle runs out of fuel between stations?
The question is becoming more relevant as adoption accelerates. On September 1, 2026, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, said more than 120,000 vehicles had been converted to CNG through more than 400 certified conversion centres and that the country now had more than 90 refuelling stations. He also said the sector had attracted more than $2 billion in private investment since the launch of the Presidential Initiative on CNG in 2023.
The Federal Government is simultaneously pushing for a much larger network. President Bola Tinubu recently ordered another 500 CNG refuelling stations, taking the immediate programme target to 1,000 stations nationwide, according to a September 1 report by BusinessDay.
But even 1,000 stations will not mean every route is continuously covered.
The gap points to a potentially important new layer of the CNG market: emergency roadside refuelling and recovery services.
Nigeria’s official CNG programme already identifies different forms of infrastructure, including mother-and-daughter stations and integrated refuelling units. The Presidential Initiative’s March 2026 expansion mandate specifically includes such infrastructure alongside CNG vehicles and nationwide conversion programmes.
Safety and regulation will be central to any roadside solution. The Standards Organisation of Nigeria said in March 2024 that it had approved more than 80 standards covering CNG conversion kits, vehicle safety, storage vessels, refuelling stations and related components.
For motorists, however, the practical question remains simple.
If petrol can be carried to a stranded car, but CNG cannot be handled the same way, what is the approved emergency alternative?
As Nigeria builds a larger CNG-powered transport system, solving that question could be just as important as building more stations.
The success of the CNG transition will ultimately depend not only on how cheaply motorists can refuel, but also on how easily they can recover when the fuel runs out.
