Aliko Dangote, the founder of the Dangote Group, revealed on Tuesday that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has over 500 million litres of premium motor spirit (PMS), commonly known as petrol, ready for distribution. His comments came following a meeting with President Bola Tinubu, focused on addressing petrol scarcity in the country.
Despite having a substantial supply available, Dangote expressed frustration that retailers are not taking deliveries of the product, which could mitigate the long fuel queues experienced across Nigeria. He warned that the company is facing significant financial losses due to the large volumes of unsold petrol.
“With sufficient crude supply, our refinery is capable of producing well over 30 million litres per day,” Dangote stated. He noted that at full production capacity, the refinery can meet the country's consumption demands. "We can begin producing at this level by next week, and as it stands, we currently have 500 million litres in our tanks," he added.
Dangote emphasized that this stockpile could sustain the nation for more than 12 days, even without additional imports or production. “We are more than ready,” he assured.
However, the billionaire businessman highlighted the financial burden of storing this excess petrol, urging retailers to expedite their collections. “As producers, we are not in the retail business,” he clarified. “We need the retailers to come forward and collect the products. If they persist in not doing so, there’s little we can do.”
Dangote further expressed his expectation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and other marketers would halt imports and begin taking deliveries from his facility. He shared the concern of incurring costs related to maintaining the large volume of stored petrol, hinting at the potential market interest rates tied to the capital being held up.
He added that if retailers began sourcing petrol from the refinery at a consistent rate, the widespread queues at fuel stations could quickly diminish. “I question why, if they are distributing 55 million litres daily from imports, they wouldn’t do the same with our product,” he noted.
The dialogue surrounding petrol distribution gained momentum with recent announcements from the federal government. Finance Minister Wale Edun indicated that the Dangote refinery would commence PMS distribution starting September 15. On October 10, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) urged the NNPC to either sell petrol to its members at the rate provided by Dangote or to refund amounts that had been with the company for well over three months.
IPMAN has raised concerns over the pricing discrepancies, claiming NNPC collected PMS from the refinery below N900 per litre but is asking oil marketers to purchase it at rates exceeding N1,000 in various locations.
In a follow-up development, the federal government announced that oil marketers could now buy petroleum products directly from the Dangote refinery and other local producers after initially directing the refinery to exclusively sell to the NNPC.
