Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) has said that it believes the price of its fuel is competitive relative to the price of imports.
It also said that If anyone claims they can land fuel at a price cheaper than what the refinery is selling, such a person is importing substandard products and conniving with international traders to dump low-quality products into Nigeria, without concern for the health of Nigerians or the longevity of their vehicles.
It also alleged that the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) does not even have laboratory facilities which can be used to detect substandard products when imported into the country.
These were contained in a statement yesterday by Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, (DIL), Anthony Chiejina.
Recall that the National Assistant Secretary of IPMAN, Yakubu Suleiman, recently said imported fuel is cheaper than the product they buy from the Dangote Refinery.
Also the Publicity Secretary, Petroleum Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) Dr Joseph Obele recently assured that PETROAN’s imported fuel would arrive at an estimated N800 per litre.
Obele said: “PETROAN will sell far less than Dangote. It will sell at prices far less than Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd).”
Chiejina said: “We had lately refrained from engaging in media fights but we are constrained to respond to the recent misinformation being circulated by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Petroleum Products Retail Outlets owners Association of Nigeria (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.
“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.
“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.”
He added: “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.
“At the same time, an international trading company has recently hired a depot facility next to the Dangote Refinery, with the objective of using it to blend substandard products that will be dumped into the market to compete with Dangote Refinery’s higher quality production.
“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 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.”
