Oil marketers under the aegis of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has declared their readiness to slash the price of petroleum.
They promised to reduce petrol prices by N50 per litre once their newly signed deal to be purchasing directly from Dangote Refinery comes to reality.
The National Working Committee of IPMAN met with the management of Dangote Refinery in Abuja on Monday.
At the meeting, Dangote refinery obliged IPMAN to lift PMS, AGO and DPK directly for onward supply to IPMAN depots and retail outlets.
Nigerians had expected that the latest arrangement with the Dangote refinery would ensure a steady and ceaseless supply of PMS products all over Nigeria at an affordable rate.
However, IPMAN’s National President, Abubakar Maigandi, while giving more facts about the development in an interview with a national television, disclosed that oil marketers could only part with N50.
Maigandi said that Dangote Refinery agreed to supply petrol to IPMAN members at a rate of N940 per litre for depots and N990 per litre for trucks.
He then noted that IPMAN members who currently sell petrol between N1,150 and N1,200 per litre would only adjust their prices down by N50, depending on location.
Since the deal with the refinery firm, the IPMAN President said members have been given two different arrangements on how to buy fuel from the refinery, adding that one of the options is that marketers can load the vessels and carry them to their various depots at the rate of N940 per litre while the other is that for the depots, it is at the rate of N990 per litre.
He said in Maiduguri, for instance, the current price of petrol is N1,200 per litre, saying that following these changes, it may likely reduce to N1,150, which is a reduction of N50.
He however noted that marketers may decide to cut beyond N50.
The IPMAN President declared that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s (NNPCL) role as the exclusive buyer of Dangote’s petrol has ended.
Meanwhile, Nigerians currently pay between N1,060 and N1,200 per litre at NNPCL retail outlets and other filling stations.