How to Refill a 50kg POL / Calor / Flogas Tank in Nigeria — The Safe Way

If you own a 50kg cylinder with a POL valve — the kind that often arrives as a Calor or Flogas bottle — you already know the problem. The neighbourhood shop that fills 3kg, 6kg and 12.5kg bottles will often look at that tank and say no. Or worse, they will offer to “manage it” with a hose.

That second option is how people get leaks, short fills, and explosions in the news.

In most of Europe you exchange the empty bottle for a full one. In Nigeria you usually own the cylinder and you take it to a plant. For 50kg POL tanks, that difference matters.

Why 50kg POL is not a roadside job

POL is an older screw-type propane valve. Many imported Calor and Flogas bottles use it. A typical Nigerian retail hose is built for the valves on local domestic cylinders. Force the wrong fitting onto a POL valve and you do not get a professional fill. You get a leak path.

Tank-to-tank transfer from a 50kg bottle into smaller cylinders is common among informal sellers. It is slow, hard to weigh correctly, and in many regulatory settings it is not a licensed filling method.

Do not do this: do not refill a 50kg POL / Calor / Flogas tank from another cylinder at a stall, and do not treat company-owned “exchange only” bottles as free-for-all tanks. Unauthorised refill can be a legal problem as well as a safety problem.

The legal, professional path

Take the empty 50kg tank to a licensed LPG filling plant that uses a skid filling system — pump, scale, filling gun, and leak check — not a man with a hose on the veranda.

Confirm the plant is a known, fixed operation — not a moving stall.
Ask if they accept 50kg POL and if they have the matching adapter.
They should weigh the bottle (tare + product), not guess.
They should leave vapour space. A “50kg” stamp is not a promise to pack liquid to the brim.
Refuse a fill if the cylinder is badly rusted, dented, leaking, or overdue for inspection.

Adapter note: the plant’s nozzle and your POL valve must match. Buy the adapter from a gas equipment store if the plant asks you to bring one. This is plant equipment, not a home science project.

Who this is really for

Hotels, restaurants, bakeries and event caterers use 50kg. Those buyers pay more per order and they need the bottle to work on Monday morning without a scare. That is why OGas treats 50kg POL as a verified-plant job, not a roadside hustle.

What OGas will and will not do

Plants that can fill 50kg POL with a proper adapter and a scale get listed for that job.
Hotels and bulk buyers can look for that tag instead of asking ten WhatsApp groups.
Sellers who only decant from a 50kg bottle on the roadside do not get a “50kg plant” badge.

We will not publish a DIY method for filling Calor or Flogas bottles at home. Trust is the product.

If you own the bottle

Ask three questions: licensed plant or stall? Adapter for POL? Scale or guesswork?