The Dangote Refinery has dismissed allegations by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and Petroleum Products Retail Outlets owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) that they can import Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) at lower prices
In a statement, Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer Anthony Chiejina Slsays the company benchmarked its prices against international prices, and believes its prices are competitive relative to the price of imports.
According to him, the claims by anyone that they can land PMS at a price cheaper than what the Dangote Refinery are ”selling, meant others were 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.” The statement read.
The Dangote Refinery also alleged that “ an international trading company 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.”
