Anita Ogona
Dangote oil refinery began supplying the Nigerian domestic market with petroleum products such as diesel and aviation jet fuel on Tuesday, a company executive and fuel marketing associations told Reuters.
The latest economic feat has been seen by industry players as a major step in the Nigeria’s quest for energy independence.
The refinery, Africa’s largest, was built on the outskirts of the commercial capital, Lagos, at a cost of $20 billion by the continent’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, and was completed after several years of delay.
The company will save Nigeria the much needed foreign exchange (FX) that would have been spent on importing the fuels, as well as earn the country some hard currency from the supply of products to foreign markets.
Reuters quoted Dangote’s Group Executive, Devakumar Edwin, as confirming the shipping of diesel and jet fuel into the local market.
“We have substantial quantities. Products are being evacuated both by sea and road. Ships are lining up one after another to load diesel and aviation jet fuel,” Edwin said.
“Ships load a minimum of 26 million litres, though we try to push for 37 million litres vessels, for ease of operations,” he added.
Meanwhile, the pump price of diesel, has dropped from about N1,700/litre which it sold for a few weeks ago, to around N1,350/litre in some locations across the country following the sale of the commodity by the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
It was gathered on Tuesday that the refinery started pumping out diesel to the domestic market last Wednesday.
It sold a minimum of one million litres to each registered oil marketer that got the product from the plant since it commenced diesel sale. Officials of the refinery and oil dealers confirmed that the product was dispensed to marketers at between N1,225/litre and N1,300/litre depending on the volume of purchase.
This came as it was also gathered that the refinery would start releasing Premium Motor Spirit to the domestic market in May this year.
“They started pumping out diesel to marketers since last week. They also promised to sell aviation fuel soon. Some of my members confirmed this to me after making the purchase,” the National President, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abubakar Maigandi, told newsmen.
He said, “So some of our marketers have started getting the product, but as an association we have not got the product yet, because we want to get the actual rate that it will be sold to us when we buy in bulk. However, they have started selling diesel because some of our marketers have started buying.
“They are selling at N1,225/litre and the minimum volume they are giving is one million litres per marketer. Also, they assured us that they will release more products, but for now this (diesel) is what they are starting with. So we are expecting them to release PMS anytime from now.”
Maigandi said the move by Dangote would definitely lead to a crash in diesel price, as the commodity rose to a high of about N1,700/litre recently.
“The price of diesel is going to fall because of the release of products from Dangote refinery. In fact, it is already coming down in Lagos,” Maigandi added.
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