Oil marketers operating in the nation’s downstream petroleum sector are gripped by the fear of losing the power to arbitrarily fixing the pump price of Petroleum Premium Spirit (PMS), a practice they have sustained for decades.
According to Business Hallmark, the marketers’ fear is borne out of the recent attacks on them by Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), especially the decision to go public with the ex-depot price of Petroleum Premium Spirit (PMS) produced by its 650,000 barrels a day plant located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
With the veil on the opaque and secretive fuel purchase regime perpetrated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and fuel marketers finally broken by Dangote, Nigerians now have an idea of what it cost the national oil company and marketers to either bring in refined petroleum products from abroad or buy locally from Dangote Refinery, with the period when marketers can make huge margins from refined products sold in their stations expected to come to an end soon, energy experts warned.
It would be recalled that the usually calm and reticent Kano-born billionaire recently came out of his shell to launch tirades on regulators of the oil and gas sector, local and international oil producers, as well as petroleum products marketers.
In the latest attack on Sunday, November 3, 2024, while reacting to a claim by marketers that the refinery’s prices are higher than other suppliers, making it difficult for independent marketers to buy from it, Dangote Refinery claimed its prices are benchmarked against international rates, ensuring competitiveness, alleging that any marketer importing petrol at lower prices brings in substandard products, posing health and environmental risks.
“We had lately refrained from engaging in media fights but we are constrained to respond to the recent misinformation being circulated by IPMAN, PETROAN, and other associations.
“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.
“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.
“In good faith, and in the interest of the country, we commenced sales at these prices without clarity on the exchange rate that we will use to pay for the crude purchased.
“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 U.S and Europe have had to impose high tariffs on EVs (electric vehicles) and microchips in order to protect their domestic industries.
“While we continue with our determination to provide affordable, good quality, domestically refined petroleum products 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”, said the Dangote Group’s Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Tony Chiejina.
The Dangote Group also frontally attacked Pinnacle Oil Limited, an Indian multinational company, of hiring a depot facility next to its plant in Ibeju-Lekki with the objective of using it to blend substandard products that will be dumped into the market to compete with its (Dangote’s) higher quality production.
While lambasting Pinnacle Oil and Gas CEO, Robert Dickerman, for his warped interpretation of deregulation, Dangote Group maintained that deregulation should not be used as justification to import substandard products.
“The Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Company has long been an advocate of deregulation and industrialization in Nigeria, but our support is rooted in a commitment to the sustainable growth of the country’s economy and the protection of its people from any exploitation.
“Unlike Dickerman’s view, deregulation should not be a licence for the importation and distribution of off-spec products or subversion of national interests.
“So? It is perplexing that despite his experience in the U.S. market, Dickerman is advocating the importation and blending of petroleum products to Nigeria under the claim of deregulation and a free market”, Chiejina stated.
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