The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and Dangote Refinery had a disagreement over the price of petrol supplied by the refinery.
This dispute arose as NNPCL received its first batch of petrol from Dangote Refinery.
According to Olufemi Soneye, NNPCL’s Chief Spokesperson, the refinery charged N898 per liter for the premium motor spirit (PMS), not the N760 per liter reported elsewhere.
“We successfully loaded PMS at the Dangote Refinery today. The claim that we purchased it at N760 per liter is incorrect. For this initial loading, the price from the refinery was N898 per liter,” Stoney said.
However, Dangote Refinery disagreed with NNPCL’s pricing.
They argued that the N898 per liter rate was due to the cost of importing crude oil for refining, meaning the price was in line with the dollar exchange rate.
Dangote’s Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejina, criticized NNPCL’s claim, calling it “misleading and mischievous.”
The company urged Nigerians to ignore this statement and wait for the official pricing announcement from the Technical Sub-Committee on Naira-based crude sales, which will be announced on October 1, 2024.
They also explained that selling petrol in dollars meant significant savings compared to current import prices.
Dangote assured that this would help provide petrol to even the most remote areas of the country and address the long-standing fuel scarcity issues.
Dangote said: “Our attention has been drawn to a statement attributed to NNPCL spokesperson, Mr. Olufemi Soneye, that we sell our PMS at N898 per f to the NNPCL.“
“This statement is both misleading and mischievous, deliberately aimed at undermining“the milestone achievement recorded today, September 15, 2024, towards addressing“energy insufficiency and insecurity, which has bedeviled the economy in the past 50 years.”
“We urge Nigerians to disregard this malicious statement and await a formal announcement on the pricing, by the Technical Sub-Committee on Naira-based crude“sales to local refineries, appointed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu which will commence on October 1, 2024, bearing in mind that our current stock of crude was procured in dollars.“
“It should also be noted that we sold the products to NNPCL in dollars with a lot of savings against what they are currently importing. With this action, there will be petrol in every“local government area of the country regardless of their remote nature.“
“We assure Nigerians of availability of quality petroleum product and putting an end to the“endemic fuel scarcity in the country.”
KanyiDaily recalls that Dangote Refinery had began distributing its first batch of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), known as petrol, from its 650,000 barrels-per-day facility.