Dangote refinery finally reveals petrol prices

Dangote Refinery on Sunday said it sells its petrol at N960 per litre into ships and N990 per litre into trucks.

The company’s Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejina, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.

The company made this known in reaction to a claim by the marketers that the refinery’s prices are higher than other suppliers, making it difficult for independent marketers to buy from it.

The National Assistant Secretary of IPMAN, Yakubu Suleiman, disclosed this while speaking on the ARISE TV morning show on Friday. He said: “Like last week, Dangote’s price is higher than other places. Because if you can go by the price, the international price of crude has already started coming down. If I could remember, as of last week, he gave N995 per litre, and you have to bring your cargo and load.”

“How much will you pay for the cargo? And how much will go to the depot? And you expect independent marketers to go and sell it. Can we go and sell? Look, we have to pity Nigerians,” Mr Suleiman said.

In its statement on Sunday, the Dangote Refinery said its prices are benchmarked against international rates, ensuring competitiveness.

The company claimed that anyone importing petrol at lower prices likely brings in substandard products, posing health and environmental risks.

“We had lately refrained from engaging in media fights but we are constrained to respond to the recent misinformation being circulated by IPMAN, PETROAN, and other associations.

“Both organisations claim that they can import PMS at lower prices than what is being sold by the Dangote Refinery. We benchmark our prices against international prices and we believe our prices are competitive relative to the price of imports,” Mr Chiejina said.

He explained that if anyone claims they can land petrol at a price cheaper than the price Dangote is selling, then they are importing substandard products and conniving with international traders to dump low-quality products into the country, without concerns for the health of Nigerians or the longevity of their vehicles.

The Dangote spokesperson claimed the regulator, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), does not even have laboratory facilities which can be used to detect substandard products when imported into the country.

“Post deregulation, NNPC set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per litre for sale into ships and at N990 for sale into trucks. This set the benchmark for our pricing and we have even gone lower to sell at N960 per litre for sale into ships while maintaining N990 per litre for sale into trucks.

“In good faith, and in the interest of the country, we commenced sales at these prices without clarity on the exchange rate that we will use to pay for the crude purchased,” he said.

At the same time, he said an international trading company has recently hired a depot facility next to the Dangote Refinery, with the objective of using it to blend substandard products that will be dumped into the market to compete with Dangote Refinery’s higher quality production.

This, he said, is detrimental to the growth of domestic refining in Nigeria.

“We should point out that it is not unusual for countries to protect their domestic industries in order to provide jobs and grow the economy. For example, the US and Europe have had to impose high tariffs on EVs and microchips in order to protect their domestic industries.

“While we continue with our determination to provide affordable, good quality, domestically refined petroleum products in Nigeria, we call on the public to disregard the deliberate disinformation being circulated by agents of people who prefer for us to continue to export jobs and import poverty,” he added.

Background

Last Tuesday, Aliko Dangote, founder and president/chief executive of the Dangote Group, said his refinery has more than 500 million litres of petrol in stock, but marketers have not been buying the product.

He questioned why the NNPC and private retailers were still importing petrol when his refinery could produce enough.

“So, I am expecting that the NNPC Ltd and the marketers should stop importing; they should come and collect what they need,” Mr Dangote said Tuesday.

Mr Dangote did not say for how long the 500 million litres of petrol had been refined and stored by his 650,000 barrels per day refinery.

However, PREMIUM TIMES reported that data from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) showed that his refinery was unable to meet the required volume of petrol sought by NNPC Ltd for three weeks.

According to the Dangote Evacuation Report seen by this newspaper, between 15 September and 5 October, the refinery delivered only 148 million litres of petrol, instead of 575 million litres.

Last Thursday, Dangote Refinery said it has not received any payments for the purchase of refined petroleum products from the IPMAN. The company made this known in reaction to a claim by the marketers that they were unable to load petrol from the refinery for days.