Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief on Sunday when the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) began the lifting of premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol, from the Dangote Refinery Complex in Lekki, Lagos State.
More than 100 mostly 33,000-litre petrol tanker trucks originating from the NNPC had been filing up in queues to lift the product at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Ibeju-Lekki on the outskirts of Lagos since Saturday.
Announcing the development to the general public, Dangote Refinery said in a post on its X (formerly Twitter) handle: “HAPPENING NOW: First set of trucks set for loading of PMS at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.”
It was immediately followed by another post saying, “NNPC begins PMS lifting at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.”
This move stems from an agreement between both parties, which will see the Dangote Refinery assured of crude supplies from the NNPC, for which it will pay in the local currency, the naira, and conversely supply petrol exclusively to the NNPC and be likewise paid in naira.
The development is anticipated to diffuse petrol shortages, real or contrived, which have been building up across the country and an escalation of the price of petrol above the recently raised price of N855 per litre fixed by the NNPC.
Petrol has been selling at mostly between N1,000 and N1,200 per litre in stations outside of those operated by the NNPC since the organisation raised the official price to N855 per litre.
The NNPC had earlier stated in a post, “In preparation for the Dangote Refinery’s scheduled petrol loading on Sunday, 15th September 2024, NNPC Ltd has been mobilising trucks to the refinery’s fuel loading gantry in Ibeju-Lekki. As of Saturday afternoon, NNPC Ltd had deployed over 100 trucks, with hundreds more en route.”
Before this latest development, there had been back and forth arguments on whether the products from the refinery would be sold in Nigeria and at what cost.
On September 5, the Dangote Refinery issued a statement indicating that the NNPC was yet to agree to lift petrol from its complex.
“Our attention has been drawn to a headline ‘NNPC lifts Dangote Petrol, sells at N899 per litre’ published in the BusinessDay Newspapers of Wednesday, 4 September 2024. We would like to state that NNPC has not commenced lifting of refined Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), commonly known as petrol from our Dangote Petroleum Refinery,” Dangote Refinery stated.
On Friday, the Presidential Committee on the Sale of crude oil and Refined Product announced that loading of the first batch of petrol from the Dangote Refinery would commence on September 15.
Briefing journalists in Abuja, a member of the committee and Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji, said that “all agreements have been completed and loading of the first batch of PMS from the Dangote Refinery will commence on Sunday 15th September”.
He explained that Dangote Refinery would in return supply PMS and diesel of equivalent value to the domestic market to be paid for in Naira.
Based on its capacity, the Dangote Refinery can load 210 trucks in an hour, and approximately 2,100 trucks in eight hours. It also has a total of 177 storage tanks with capacity to reserve 4.742 billion litres, with more than 50 percent of the storage slated for refined products.
In addition, the refinery can produce about 10.5 million metric tons of premium motor spirit, 4.6 million metric tons of automotive gas oil, 4 million metric tons of aviation fuel, about 700,000 metric tons of polypropylene, 240,000 metric tons of propane, 32,000 metric tons of sulphur as well as 500,000 metric tons of carbon black yearly.
Since the announcement on Sunday, notable Nigerians, especially billionaire investor, Femi Otedola, have commended the move, noting that the commencement of production of refined petrol in Nigeria will go a long way to boost the economy, especially the naira.
“Kudos to President Tinubu for making this a reality! Fuel queues are now a thing of the past as Dangote Refinery starts loading PMS today Sunday 15 September 2024,” Otedola said.
Another public affairs commentator, Joe Igbokwe, lauded the development, while emphasising the benefits the country and its citizens will gain from the production of refined products in Nigeria.
At the end of the second quarter of 2024, Nigeria imported N3.22 trillion worth of petrol, representing 25.83 percent of the nation’s total imports. The country also imported N688.87 billion worth of gas oil, amounting to 5.52 percent of the nation’s imports.
In a related development, Nigerians have asked Dangote Refinery to be transparent about the pricing of its products, noting that the president of the group, Aliko Dangote, had promised that the release of the products from his refinery into the market would reduce retail price by about 40 percent.
“Great! But What matters to the average Nigerian is how this excellent innovation leads to a significant price reduction of pms across the country,” Stephen Oyewole said on X.
“My question is what is the benefit having you around when we can’t see the impact in price? Please do a review of the prices because all this hardship facing the country is directly caused by the price of PMS,” Otutu said.
