The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has begun supplying petrol to some oil marketers without resorting to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).
The development comes as marketers strengthen their move to purchase the product directly from the facility. While others imported petrol, reports say over 123 million litres will hit the market in the coming weeks.
According to the report, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) document showed that about 123.4 million litres of petrol were docked at the two ports to boost the nationwide gasoline supply.
Also, an earlier report said dealers intend to import the product to supplement supply from the Dangote Refinery.
According to The PUNCH, a senior official at the refinery said marketers are now allowed to approach the company for direct business transactions on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis.
“Marketers are already coming to the refinery to lift PMS. They are lifting directly from the refinery, not through a third party,” the reliable official, who spoke in confidence due to lack of authorisation to speak on the matter, stated.
The source, who could not tell the price at which marketers were lifting the product, noted that the oil dealers would not come if the price was not favourable to them.
“We have reached agreements with some of the marketers and more are still ongoing. I don’t know the exact price, but if the price is not good, the marketers would not be coming to us,” the official stated.
He maintained that things are improving, especially as the Federal Government commenced the supply of crude to the facility.
Another official at the facility showed one of our correspondents the trucks of some marketers loading the product directly from the plant without going through NNPC.
“Some of the trucks you saw there today were from marketers purchasing the product directly from Dangote, without recourse to NNPC. So the direct sale has started,” the source stated.
The official explained that due to the high demand for petrol in Nigeria and other countries, the refinery had focused on ensuring 53 per cent of PMS production from its crude oil supplies.
“This could be reviewed in future if the demand for other finished products increases more than the demand for petrol, but right now about 53 per cent of our crude is used for petrol production, while other products account for the remaining percentage,” the official stated.
When asked if marketers had started the direct purchase of petrol from Dangote without recourse to NNPC, one of the notable major marketers in the country replied in the affirmative.
“Yes, everyone is in the process. This was advised that it would happen soon and is a normal business transaction,” the source stated.
Meanwhile, the Dangote refinery had received four crude oil cargoes from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) under the naira-for-crude deal.
The cargoes were reportedly delivered to the facility in the last three weeks when the Nigerian government began selling crude to local refineries in naira.