KEY POINTS

• Oil marketers are concerned about NNPC’s control of PMS sales from the Dangote refinery.
• The government mandates marketers to buy fuel from NNPC’s trading company.
• Dangote refinery fuel is priced at N766 per liter to NNPC, with expected retail prices of N790 to N820 per liter.

Marketers are criticizing the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for its strict control over the market, and are demanding direct access to purchase Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) from the Dangote refinery

In accordance with the corporation’s prior pledge to accept willing buyers and sellers, the market should be accessible to everybody, according to Chinedu Ukadike, National Publicity Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria.

According to a report by Punch, the Dangote refinery was free to sell its gasoline to any marketer, the NNPCL had stated last Saturday, adding that it was not the only company that purchased products from the refinery.

However, the Federal Government said a week following the declaration that the corporation would be the refinery’s only customer for gasoline.

Wale Edun, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, stated during a press conference in Abuja on Friday that interested marketers would need to purchase the commodity from the national oil corporation via its trading company.

The minister also said that the Dangote refinery will start supplying marketers with gasoline on Sunday, initially distributing 25 million liters per day. Dr. Zacceus Adedeji, Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, represented the minister in this regard.

Crude oil exchange deal between NNPC and Dangote

Additionally, starting on October 1, NNPC will start providing the Dangote refinery with crude oil. “In exchange, the Dangote refinery will provide diesel and PMS to the domestic market of equal value, to be paid for in naira. But PMS will only be sold to NNPC for the time being. After that, NNPC would sell to different merchants.”

Concerns over local monopoly

Ukadike responded by saying that the market ought to be liberalized. “In keeping with the NNPC’s remarks about eager sellers and buyers, it ought to be accessible to everyone. Along with that, we are considering how to develop our logistics and determine our pricing,” he said.

Additionally, Billy Gillis-Harry, the National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Association of Nigeria, expressed alarm about the potential consequences of establishing a new local monopoly in the oil and gas industry.

Gillis-Harry stated, “We don’t know what the price might be right now, even on Saturday, that business (petrol) is going to start rolling out tomorrow (Sunday). We don’t know what the government is doing; no one has told us anything.”

“Neither the price templates nor the matrix that will produce them are known to us at this time. We are about to leave NNPC monopoly from importation and now we are also going to have that in a domestic environment, that portends danger for the industry,” the statement reads.

“We have been asking Dangote or anybody that is in charge of this transaction to be transparent, but somehow, we have not received any of that information.”