By Chidi Ugwu
Dangote Refinery has responded to claims by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and the Petroleum Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) regarding lower-priced fuel imports.
In a statement, Group Chief Branding Officer Anthony Chiejina asserted that their pricing of N960 per litre for ships and N990 for trucks is competitive and benchmarked against international rates.
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He warned that any cheaper imports likely consist of substandard products, posing risks to public health and vehicle longevity.
The refinery emphasized its commitment to quality and urged the public to disregard misinformation aimed at undermining local refining efforts.
The statement reads: “We had lately refrained from engaging in media fights but we are constrained to respond to the recent misinformation being circulated by IPMAN, PETROAN, and other associations.
“Both organisations claim that they can import PMS at lower prices than what is being sold by the Dangote Refinery. We benchmark our prices against international prices and we believe our prices are competitive relative to the price of imports.
“If anyone claims they can land PMS at a price cheaper than what we are Selling, then they are importing substandard products and conniving with international traders to dump low quality products into the country, without concern for the health of Nigerians or the longevity of their vehicles.
“Unfortunately, the regulator (NMDPRA) does not even have laboratory facilities which can be used to detect substandard products when imported into the country.
“Post deregulation, NNPC set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per litre for sale into ships and at N990 for sale into trucks. This set the benchmark for our pricing and we have even gone lower to sell at N960 per litre for sale into ships while maintaining N990 per litre for sale into trucks.
“In good faith, and in the interest of the country, we commenced sales at these prices without clarity on the exchange rate that we will use to pay for the crude purchased.
“At the same time, an international trading company has recently hired a depot facility next to the Dangote Refinery, with the objective of using it to blend substandard products that will be dumped into the market to compete with Dangote Refinery’s higher quality production.
“This is detrimental to the growth of domestic refining in Nigeria. We should point out that it is not unusual for countries to protect their domestic industries in order to provide jobs and grow the economy.
“For example, the US and Europe have had to impose high tariffs on EVs and microchips in order to protect their domestic industries.
“While we continue with our determination to provide affordable, good quality, domestically refined petroleum product in Nigeria, we call on the public to disregard the deliberate disinformation being circulated by agents of people who prefer for us to continue to export jobs and import poverty”.
