Nigeria’s state-owned oil company, NNPC Limited, will start distributing gasoline from the 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote Refinery to the local market on Sunday.
The long-awaited $20 billion refinery, constructed by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, started processing gasoline last week. However, Distribution had been delayed due to disputes over offtake rights and pricing.
“I am glad to announce that all agreements have been completed and loading of the first batch of PMS from the Dangote Refinery will commence on Sunday, September 15,” Zacch Adedeji, executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) said.
He stated that starting next month, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited will supply approximately 385,000 barrels of crude oil per day to the Dangote Refinery.
“From October 1, NNPC Ltd. will commence the supply of about 385,000 bpd of crude oil to the Dangote refinery, to be paid for in naira,” he said.
Adedeji said that in exchange for crude oil, Dangote will supply gasoline and diesel of equivalent value to the domestic market, with transactions settled in the local naira currency.
Adedeji stressed that the refinery will exclusively sell petrol to the NNPC, meaning that interested marketers will need to purchase the product through the national oil firm. However, the refinery is permitted to sell diesel to any buyer.
This contradicts NNPC’s earlier assertion that it does not plan to be the exclusive distributor of petrol from the Dangote refinery.
In an earlier report, Devakumar Edwin, vice president at Dangote Industries Limited had mentioned that NNPC Ltd, which is the sole importer of gasoline in the country, would be the exclusive buyer of the refinery’s gasoline.
Currently, only around 5% of local fuel traders are buying products from the Dangote Refinery. The refinery is limiting its sales to just 29 tankers of diesel per day, according to an executive’s statement on Thursday.
