The Dangote refinery may resort to exporting its Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) following the refusal of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) to be the sole buyer of its product.
The NNPC stated that it would only fully offtake petrol from the refinery if the market prices of PMS were higher than the pump prices in Nigeria.
This is contrary to claims by the President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, that the refinery was waiting for the NNPC to roll out its product.
The NNPC also declared that Dangote and other domestic refineries were free to sell directly to any marketer on a willing buyer, willing seller basis.
The company was reacting to a press release by the Muslim Rights Concern, which claimed that the Dangote refinery was being undermined by the NNPC.
According to the Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, Dangote petrol would be exported if the NNPC and other petroleum dealers in the country refused to patronize it.
Edwin stated:
“There has been a kind of blockade from lifting our products within the country. The traders have been trying to blockade, and so now, we have been exporting our petroleum products.”
A professor of Economics at the University of Ibadan, Adeola Adenikinju, advised that the government and the NNPC should buy PMS from the Dangote refinery instead of importing from another country.
Adenikinju noted:
“Dangote refinery is a private business; he will export to where he can make money. He cannot be subsidizing our economy. It is still going to be cheaper for the NNPC to buy from Dangote than to import from Europe.”
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) said it would buy PMS from Dangote at any price, even if the NNPC refused to buy.
IPMAN’s National President, Abubakar Maigandi, stated:
“Whatever the case, if Dangote starts selling his product, we are going to patronize him; if at all he wants to do business with us.”
Meanwhile, black marketers are selling fuel for between N1,300 and N1,400 per litre in Benue State.
Long queues persist in many filling stations across the country despite the hike in fuel price.
The NNPC has maintained that it will not fix the price for Dangote or be its sole off-taker.
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