Piped natural gas vs CNG for Nigerian industry: which fits your operation?
Published 9 July 2026 · Gasland Horizon
Piped natural gas and compressed natural gas (CNG) are the same clean, domestic fuel. What differs is how it reaches you, and that difference decides which one fits your operation. Both beat diesel on cost and both cut emissions. Choosing between them is really a question of your location, your volume and how continuously you run.
The difference in one line
Piped natural gas
Gas delivered continuously through a pipeline to your gate, metered and billed on what you use. No deliveries, no storage, no fuel handling. The lowest-cost, most reliable option for continuous industrial load, available where a distribution network reaches you.
Compressed natural gas (CNG)
Gas compressed and trucked to site in high-pressure containers, then decanted and regulated for use. It reaches sites no pipeline serves, which is its great strength. You manage delivery schedules and on-site storage, and throughput is limited by how much can be trucked in.
Head to head
- Cost. Both are far cheaper than diesel. Piped gas is usually the lowest delivered cost because it avoids compression, trucking and handling.
- Continuity. Piped gas flows without interruption. CNG depends on trucks arriving on schedule, and on enough on-site storage to ride out gaps.
- Logistics. Piped gas has no fuel logistics at all. CNG replaces diesel tankers with gas trailers, which is a big improvement over diesel but still a supply chain to manage.
- Volume and scale. Piped gas scales cleanly with your load as the network grows. CNG is practical up to the volume you can reasonably truck and store.
- Geography. CNG can serve a site anywhere on a road. Piped gas requires a distribution network to reach the site, which is why it is developed corridor by corridor.
When CNG is the right call
- Your site is beyond the reach of any gas distribution network.
- Your volumes are modest or variable, so trucked supply is comfortably enough.
- You need a bridge now while a pipeline is being built out toward you.
When piped natural gas is the right call
- You run continuously and at scale, so uninterrupted base-load supply matters.
- Your site is in or near a distribution zone, so a network can reach you.
- You want the lowest delivered cost and no fuel logistics to manage at all.
They are not really rivals
For most industrial buyers the honest answer is that CNG and piped gas are complementary. CNG is an excellent way to get off diesel quickly and to serve sites a pipeline has not reached. Piped gas is the base-load destination for continuous, gas-intensive operations once a network is in place. Many operations start on one and move to the other as demand and infrastructure mature.
What this means in Anambra and Delta
Across its franchise zones in Anambra and Delta States, Awka, the Anambra Mixed Use Industrial City (AMIC), the Oghara-Sapele corridor, Ibusa and Ogidigben, Gasland Horizon is the exclusive franchise holder for piped natural gas distribution. If your site sits in or near one of these zones and you run a continuous load, piped gas is the base-load option to build around. If you are not yet in reach, register your demand anyway: it tells us where to extend the network next, and helps us sequence the build-out toward you.
Find the right fit for your site
Complete the Energy Data Form with your location and consumption profile, and our commercial team will advise on the right option and model your savings, at no cost and with no obligation.