Dangote, NNPC disagree over petrol price per litre

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has announced its fuel purchase from Dangote Refinery at a rate of N898 per litre.

,,,,,NNPCL dispatched about 300 trucks to the 650,000-barrels-per-day capacity refinery in Lagos on Saturday, with loading operations commencing on Sunday.

,,,,,Spokesperson for the NNPCL, Olufemi Soneye, on Sunday told Daily Trust the company bought the fuel as N898 per litre contrary to reports claiming N760.

According to him; “We successfully loaded PMS at the Dangote Refinery today. The claim that we purchased it at N760 per litre is incorrect. For this initial loading, the price from the refinery was N898 per litre.”

Soneye disclosed that over 70 trucks had been loaded as at the time of talking to the newspaper.

Earlier, Dangote Refinery had commenced petrol distribution and loading of the first set of trucks from its premises in the Ibeju Lekki area of Lagos State.

,,,,,Dangote Group, owned by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, announced this in a post made on its X (formerly Twitter) account, where it shared photos and videos of loaded trucks leaving the facilities.

____“HAPPENING NOW: First set of trucks set for loading of PMS at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery,” it said in the post.

Dangote reaction

Meanwhile, The Dangote Group has urged Nigerians to disregard media reports claiming that spokesman for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Olufemi Soneye, disclosed that the oil company has bought Premium Motor Spirit from the refinery at N898 per litre.

This clarification was made in a statement issued on Sunday evening by the Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Dangote Group, Anthony Chiejina, who described the media reports in question as ‘misleading and mischievous’ which had also sought to undermine the company’s recent milestones in addressing long-standing crisis in the country’s petroleum industry.

He added that this is also aimed at derailing the progress achieved towards alleviating energy insufficiency and insecurity, which had plagued the country for decades.

‘Our attention has been drawn to a statement attributed to NNPCL spokesperson, Mr Olufemi Soneye, that we sell our PMS at N898 per litre to the NNPCL.

This statement is both misleading and mischievous, deliberately aimed at undermining the milestone achievement recorded today, September 15, 2024, towards addressing energy insufficiency and insecurity, which has bedevilled the economy in the past 50 years. We urge Nigerians to disregard this malicious statement and await a formal announcement on the pricing, by the Technical Sub-Committee on Naira-based crude sales to local refineries, appointed by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, which will commence on October 1, 2024, bearing in mind that our current stock of crude was procured in dollars.

With this action, there will be petrol in every local government area in the country regardless of their remote nature. We assure Nigerians of availability of quality petroleum products which will put an end to the endemic fuel scarcity in the country’