Dangote Refinery Sold Petrol to NNPC at Lower Price than Imports, CEO Clarifies

Aliko Dangote, Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Refinery, has addressed the ongoing concerns about fuel pricing, asserting that the petrol sold by his refinery to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) was offered at a price lower than what the NNPC had imported.

Dangote made this clarification on Monday during an interview with Bloomberg TV in New York, USA.

He explained that at the time NNPC purchased petrol from the refinery, the national oil company was also importing around 800,000 metric tonnes of petrol into Nigeria.

Dangote further highlighted that the petrol imported by NNPC during the same period was significantly more expensive than the fuel supplied by his 650,000 barrels-per-day refinery.

He said: “What’s going on is not really a disagreement per se. NNPC bought from us this particular one on the 15 of September at the international price. They also bought over 800,000 metric tonnes of gasoline imported.

“The ones they bought from us was actually cheaper than the one they imported. So when they announced our price, it wasn’t really the real price. What they announced was likely what it cost them including profits, and other things. Meanwhile, they’ve never added profit to their cost before.

“And then, the other one is what they imported but the people don’t know how much they spend for importing. But their own importation was about fifteen to 20 percent more expensive than ours. What they first do is to sell at a basket price. If they want to remove subsidy, they can announce that they’ve removed subsidy. Everybody will adjust.”

Earlier, the NNPC announced that the Dangote Refinery sold petrol to them at N898 per litre after the first batch of offtake from the facility.

In response, the Dangote Group issued a statement refuting NNPC’s claim, explaining that the quoted N890 per litre does not represent the actual national price.

According to the group, they sold the petrol to NNPC at a considerably subsidized rate, given the circumstances surrounding their crude oil acquisition.