Dangote Refinery Defends Its Petrol Pricing, Dismisses IPMAN’s Price Claims as ‘Misinformation’

Dangote Refinery has responded to claims that premium motor spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, from its refinery is costlier than imported ones.

In a recent television interview, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) national assistant secretary, Yakubu Suleiman, made the counterclaim. He was responding to an earlier allegation by Dangote Chairman Aliko Dangote that marketers who refused to lift petrol locally available from his refinery in favor of imported ones were responsible for higher pump prices and scarcity in parts of the country.

Mr. Suleiman debunked Dangote’s assertion claiming that Dangote sells at a higher price than imported ones, leaving IPMAN’s members no choice but to opt for imported products.

“If Dangote has a product selling for N1,000, let’s assume, and there’s another place selling for N900, we can’t just say, for the sake of our relationship with Dangote, that we’ll instruct our members to buy there. We must go where the price is lower, where we’ll get profit,” Suleiman argued.

Dangote Dismiss IPMAN’s Claims

However, rebuffing IPMAN’s counterclaims, Anthony Chiejina, Dangote’s Group Chief Branding, and Communications Officer, on Sunday described IPMAN’s claim as deliberate “misinformation“. He said, “We believe our prices are competitive relative to the price of imports. We benchmarked our prices against international prices.“

“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,” Chiejina said.

“Post-deregulation, NNPC set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per liter for sale into ships and at N990 for sale into trucks. We have even gone lower to sell N960 per liter for sale into ships while maintaining N990 per liter for sale into trucks.“

The Dangote brand officer also raised the issue of the dangers of importing substandard products to the domestic refining sector. He alleged that “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.“

Support Local Production

Chiejina on behalf of his company, urged the public to support domestic industries, saying, “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.“

“It is usual for countries to protect their domestic industries to provide jobs and grow the economy. For example, the US and Europe have imposed high tariffs on EVs and microchips to protect domestic industries. We should do the same.” he argued.

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