Dangote refinery has finally announced the price of premium motor spirit (PMS), popularly known as Petrol, following months of back and forth.
The company said it sells to domestic marketers at N971 per litre into ships and N990 into trucks, according to a statement signed by Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer and released on Sunday evening.
“Post deregulation, NNPC set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per litre for sale into ships and at N990 for sale into trucks. This set the benchmark for our pricing, and we have even gone lower to sell at N960 per litre for sale into ships while maintaining N990 per litre for sale into trucks”, the company said in the statement released on its X page.
On a series of accusations and counter-accusations from IPMAN, PETROAN, and other associations, Dangote refinery said it is impossible to land petrol at a lower price than Dangote refinery’s current price, except they are importing substandard products.
“Both organisations 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. Unfortunately, the regulator (NMDPRA) does not even have laboratory facilities which can be used to detect substandard products when imported into the country.”
The company claimed it started selling at the stated rates without knowing the exchange rate that would be used to pay for the crude purchased.
Meanwhile, the company has said an international trading company rented a depot facility close to its refinery with plans to start blending substandard products and dump them into the Nigerian market to compete with Dangote refinery’s better quality.
“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 in order to provide jobs and grow the economy. For example, the US and Europe have had to impose high tariffs on EVs and microchips in order to protect their domestic industries.”
“While we continue with our determination to provide affordable, good quality, domestically refined petroleum product 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.”