The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has given approval to major Petroleum Marketers to start sourcing petrol from Dangote Petroleum Refinery based on an existing agreement between the NNPCL and the refinery.
The original agreement stated that NNPCL would be the sole distributor of the refinery’s petrol and the first batch of shipments would consist of 16.8 million litres sourced from NNPCL’s retail operations. Journalists’ investigations revealed that some major distributors, including 11 Plc, have already lifted the product for distribution to their outlets in Lagos and other parts of the country.
One of the traders, who preferred to remain anonymous, said, “I can confirm that we have some major marketers already lifting from the Dangote Refinery, but it is still under the NNPC arrangement with the refinery, in other words, we are lifting NNPC product from the Dangote refinery. It is not our product. We have no direct arrangement with the refinery.”
However, Journalists also learned that the revised agreement does not include independent dealers.
In a phone interview with Journalists, the National Chairman of the Association of Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigeria, (IPMAN), Alhaji Abubakar Garima, admitted that only NNPCL has access to Dangote fuel and supplies the majority of the product to retail outlets.
He added that they are yet to purchase anything from NNPCL as per their agreement with Dangote Refinery.
He said, “Independent traders are waiting for NNPCL to announce the new price of petroleum products to sell to them. We are charging the old price of 875 naira per litre as most of our members still have NNPCL stocks. We were told they would be released this week. “
We want to import and compete with NNPC and Dangote who are the marketers.
Under the agreement that made NNPCL the sole buyer of petrol from the Dangote refinery, market players say they may have to rely on imports to stay in business. Market players are therefore calling on the Federal Government to fully open up the sector to all players.
Meanwhile, inspections in Abuja and Lagos yesterday revealed that many petrol stations are still without product and closed, four days after NNPC began loading petrol from the Dangote refinery.
Public Relations Head, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Chief Chinedu Ukadike, told Journalists that the group plans to start importing its own petrol.
“There has been no progress in the situation. We have been waiting for NNPC and nothing has changed. We have information that at least three marketers are bringing in products from outside of the country. This is Dangote’s chance to work with independent marketers.
“We are asking Dangote to sell to us at the same price as NNPC. We don’t understand why he has to depend solely on NNPC to distribute its product when he has other willing buyers.
“We are also looking at importing to keep our business. We are also asking the Federal Government to also hand over the Port Harcourt Refinery to independent marketers. We will engage capable people to manage it. That is the only panacea to this problem”, he added.
Commenting on the new contract with a leading marketing company for product promotion, the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr. Muda Yusuf: “Well, ordinarily, this should be a good development, but, we need more information. We need to know the framework under which they are lifting. We need to know the pricing framework and other details, including the involvement of NNPC.”
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