The Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company (GCMC) has disclosed that nearly one in three Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders submitted for refurbishment under the national safety programme are too dangerous to return to households, raising fresh concerns about the scale of the risk carried by millions of domestic gas users.
Managing Director Abdul-Rahman Mankir confirmed on Tuesday, April 22, that inspections conducted under the Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM) consistently find that about 30 percent of cylinders arriving in batches for testing and refurbishment fail safety checks. Those cylinders are permanently withdrawn from circulation, scrapped, and sent to a steel mill rather than returned to consumers.
“When you look at the cylinders that come here for the refurbishment, they usually come in batches. Sometimes they come, and about 30 percent of them that come are not good. They are not safe to go back into the market,” Mankir stated. He added that without the recirculation programme, those defective units would remain in homes undetected, quietly raising the risk of gas leaks, fires, and explosions.
GCMC has sharply expanded its refurbishment output in response to the safety imperative, scaling capacity from approximately 6,700 cylinders in 2024 to more than 57,000 in 2025. The company is now pressing the government for further support to push daily production from its current level of over 1,000 cylinders to 3,000 as retooling works continue.
The CRM, championed by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), replaces the older system of consumers taking personal cylinders to fuel stations for refilling. Under the model, pre-filled and certified cylinders are distributed through neighbourhood exchange points, where consumers swap empty units for full ones. The arrangement removes the refilling risk from crowded public spaces and puts the responsibility for cylinder safety firmly with operators rather than end users.
Mankir said the model is currently active only in Accra, Kumasi, and Tema, and called for a nationwide rollout. He also confirmed plans to partner with the NPA for a broad public education campaign, noting that awareness of the CRM remains low even within its existing operational zones.
The NPA board has approved the use of the Cylinder Investment Margin to compensate bottling plants, clearing the financial bottleneck that has kept the CRM at pilot stage since 2023, with a full national rollout now targeted for 2026.
Ghana currently has an estimated 1.2 million unsafe LPG cylinders in active household use, according to NPA data, a figure that underscores why regulators and industry officials view expansion of the recirculation system as urgent rather than optional.
