Lanre Shittu Auto Assembly plant has begun operations in Nigeria to produce and convert petrol-and-diesel-powered engines into natural compressed gas(CNG).

The company’s Lagos plant also wants to assemble electric vehicles.

Recently, the Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Joseph Osanipin, visited the Lagos plant and expressed satisfaction with the state of the plant and its volume of work.

The assembly plant to concentrate on CNG vehicles He commended the company for concentrating on assembling commercial vehicles, specifically trucks, pickup vehicles and CNG-powered vehicles.

Osanipin spoke after he inspected the auto assembly plant, where the company's management took him through assembling the JAC truck components and converting the trucks into CNG.

According to the NADDC boss, the council has seen the process and spare parts, meaning that the company is set to have vehicles with sufficient parts.

Osanipin said: “I have seen the capacity and ability to meet the demand of the market. What we have seen here, I’m not too surprised because Lanre Shittu Motors has been there over the years.”

LSM employs more Nigerians than foreigners He disclosed that about 95% of the workers at the truck and pickup sections of the plant are Nigerians.

He expressed the auto industry's desire to begin mass production of CNG-powered vehicles as part of the Nigerian government’s CNG initiative.

Vanguard reports that the DG asked Nigerians to embrace the initiative, stating that it is cost-effective for Nigerians to move to CNG-powered vehicles due to the high cost of petrol and diesel.

Taiwo Shittu, the Managing Director of Lanre Shittu Motors, stated that trucks would be the next set of conversions at the plant, adding that the company had delivered some CNG-powered mass transit buses for the airport shuttle.

Reports say that Shittu said that the pant could produce six units daily, adding that the firm had the opportunity to purchase CNG-powered vehicles immediately after the Nigerian government removed the subsidy from petrol.

He said: “As we speak, we are converting our vehicles to run on CNG. We have our CNG conversion kits on the ground. We have mass transit buses already at the airports for shuttle, assembled here in Nigeria.”

The development comes as the Nigerian government disclosed its plans to begin the free conversion of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles.

On Thursday, July 11, 2o24, the Nigerian government declared that converting petrol and diesel-powered commercial vehicles to run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) will be free.

FG offers free conversion kits to vehicle owners

The programme director/chief executive of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, Michael Oluwagbemi, stated this after the agency signed agreements with the firms.

He revealed that the agency has a robust monitoring mechanism around conversion and enforcing price reduction for Nigerians.