By Luke Onyekakeyah

The recent disclosure by the Dangote Refinery that it sells PMS (petrol) at N990 per litre into trucks exonerates the company from blame of being part of the oil mafia punishing Nigerians with exorbitant and exploitative fuel price hikes.

There is no doubt that as an indigenous petroleum products manufacturer, Dangote’s mission is to make Nigerians have a sigh of relief after decades of scarcity of petroleum products. Dangote Refinery made the disclosure while reacting to recent disclosures made by IPMAN, PETROAN and other petrol retail associations.

According to a statement by the Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejina, Dangote prices are benchmarked against international prices. Said he, “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 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 (petrol) 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.”

NNPC, he noted, set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per litre for sale into ships and 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 into trucks.

Concluding Chiejina said, “While we continue with our determination to provide affordable, good quality, domestically refined petroleum products 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.”

From the foregoing, it is obvious that Dangote Refinery seems not to have freehand in fixing the price of its products, the NNPCL determines the prices. Consequently, Dangote Refinery is constrained to sell its products at NNPC price benchmark against its will. Ab initio, Dangote Refinery was launched to bring relief to Nigerians who have, for decades, been bedeviled with incessant fuel scarcity and arbitrary price increases.

Decades of failure by the government to build modern refineries as a solution to the incessant fuel scarcity in the country led to the launching of the Dangote Lekki Refinery and petrochemical plant, a private sector initiative by Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Nigeria’s foremost business tycoon, adjudged by Forbes as Africa’s richest man. The facility represents a beacon of hope and inspiration in Nigeria and the world. The vision is to leverage Nigeria and Nigerians in the petrochemical industrial development sector. Nigeria is indeed blessed to have Dangote as one of her eminent citizens. His impacts on the socio-economic development of the country resonate in different sectors of the economy.

Fortunately, the refinery is coming on stream at a time Nigerians are bearing the brunt of inconsiderate and outrageous fuel pump price hike following the removal of the imaginary fuel subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on his inauguration day, on May 29, 2023. That Nigeria, until recently, the sixth largest oil producer in the world, has no functional refineries is confounding. The country relies on imported fuel, which explains why prices are corruptly manipulated to the detriment of Nigerians.

The Dangote Refinery is coming as a home made alternative that is immune to all the corrupt practices that the oil mafia deliberately embed into imported fuel to punish Nigerians. The Dangote Refinery’s fuel output is more than enough to crash the pump price of fuel but this has not happened because the same vested interests are hell bent to exploit Nigerians irrespective of whether or not the fuel is imported or domestically produced.

The huge benefits the Dangote Refinery would accrue to Nigeria have pbeen echoed by the government. For instance, when former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo went on an assessment tour of the refinery, accompanied by the former Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode and other top government officials, he disclosed that the Federal Government would earn over N145 billion  when completed. He said that the refinery has a capacity to to refine 650, 000 barrels per day.

Besides the economic gains of the refinery, which is of great importance, the refinery will put Nigeria in the league of countries with such lofty infrastructure, thereby removing the shame and embarrassment the country and its people have suffered as a result of years of recurrent fuel scarcity.

Being that the refinery is integrated with a petrochemical plant, a fertilizer plant and a subsea pipeline project, Osinbajo said by all projections, it is the largest in the world. He described it as an incredible industrial undertaking, the largest and most ambitious on the continent.

In his remarks, Alhaji Dangote said the target is that in five years time, half of Nigeria’s crude oil will be refined and exported rather than exporting crude that creates jobs elsewhere. The prospect of Nigeria becoming a net exporter of refined petroleum products is marvelous. It is heartening that Nigeria now has one of the largest refineries in the world. The largest refinery in the world is Jamnagar Refinery in Gujarat, India, which produces 1,240,000 barrels per day.

Certainly, the Dangote Refinery has no rival in Africa. It has toppled South Africa’s Sapref  Refinery, which was the largest in Africa, producing 180,000 barrels per day, followed by Egypt’s Cairo Mostorod Refinery with a production capacity of 142,000 barrels per day.

A lot has been said about the frequent fuel scarcity in Nigeria. The cause of fuel scarcity is systemic dysfunction arising from years of mismanagement of the oil sector. Not until there are functional refineries that would stop fuel importation, fuel scarcity will continue. The Dangote Refinery has filled the gap in domestic fuel production, as such, it will be wrong if Nigeria fails to capitalise on the facility.

Before now, Nigeria had four refineries owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna. The two refineries in Port Harcourt built. in 1965 and 1989 were merged into one in 1993, with a total refining capacity of 10.500 million metric tons per year. The Warri refinery was built in 1978 with a refining capacity of 5.5 million metric tons per year. The Kaduna refinery was built in 1980 with a refining capacity of 5.5 million mt/yr. The three refineries have a combined refining capacity of 445,000 barrels per day, which amounts to 70.75 million litres of petrol. The Dangote Refinery is bigger than all  the refineries in Nigeria put together.

The daily demand of petrol in Nigeria is about 40.32 million litres, meaning that we ought to have in excess 30.43 million litres.If the three refineries in Nigeria were producing at full capacity, there would be more than enough petrol and an excess of 30.43 million that could be exported to earn foreign exchange. Unfortunately, the refineries are not working.

With the Dangote Refinery on stream,  Nigerians, certainly, should have a sigh of relief. The drudgery people suffered on fuel queues should be a thing of the past. This is real time development. The Dangote Refinery should be allowed to give its full benefits to Nigerians.

*Dr. Onyekakeyah is a public affairs analyst.