Contrary to its earlier promise, Dangote Refinery has reportedly failed to meet the demand of Nigerian petroleum marketers.
Consequently, the oil dealers have returned to their mode of buying the product outside the country and shipping them into Nigeria to sell.
They accused Dangote Refinery of inability to meet their demand, stressing that the need to prevent fuel scarcity forced them into patronising foreign petroleum refiners.
According to them, the development is to supplement the country’s fuel supply.
The old dealers also cashed in on the fair market price to be importing the product following the federal government’s full deregulation of the downstream oil sector.
In September for instance, the marketers imported about 141 million litres of fuel in September.
Investors King gathered that no fewer than four vessels carrying 123.4 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) arrived at Nigerian seaports between Friday, October 18, and Sunday, October 20.
In a document by the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA), the four newly shipped vessels landed at the Apapa port in Lagos and the Calabar port in Cross River State.
It was gathered that 35,000, 37,000 and 10,000 metric tonnes of PMS arrived at Apapa port on Friday, October 18 in different batches.
Another 10,000 metric tonnes of fuel was said to have arrived at Calabar port on Sunday, October 20.
Dangote Refinery had promised to produce 650,000 barrels per day to meet its promised production target.
However, oil dealers had earlier disclosed that the refinery was producing only 10 million litres of petrol daily, far below its initial promise of 25 million litres.
The total fuel so far imported into the country stands at approximately 123.4 million litres of petrol if the conversion rate of 1,341 litres to one metric tonne is considered.