In an attempt to douse tension and end the lingering controversy surrounding the appropriate pricing of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly known as petrol, Dangote Refinery has disclosed that it sells the product at N990 per liter for trucks and N960 per liter to ships.
This intervention followed the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) claims of importing the products at cheaper rates compared to that of Dangote.
The marketers had earlier claimed that they are buying at cheaper rates abroad while calling on Dangote Refinery to engage stakeholders, but the refinery has insisted that only substandard products could be imported at cheaper rates than its own products.
In a statement made available to journalists, yesterday, in Lagos, the Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejina, said the refinery followed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) pricing benchmark, adding that the company had to go lower in its pricing for selling into ships.
“Both organizations 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.
“If anyone claims they can land PMS at a price cheaper than what we are selling, then they are importing substandard products and conniving with international traders to dump low-quality products into the country, without concern for the health of Nigerians or the longevity of their vehicles.
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“Unfortunately, the Nigeria 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,” the statement reads.
Chiejina pointed out that post deregulation, the NNPCL set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per liter for sale to ships and at N990 for sale into trucks, which he said, set the benchmark for our pricing.
“We have even gone lower to sell at N960 per liter for sale into ships, while maintaining N990 per liter 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.
“At the same time, an international trading company has recently hired a depot facility next to the Dangote Refinery, to use it to blend substandard products that will be dumped into the market to compete with Dangote Refinery’s higher quality production, ” he added.
“This 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 to provide jobs for its citizens and grow the economy. For example, the United States and Europe have had to impose high tariffs on EVs and microchips 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,” the statement concluded.
