Dangote Group has denied reports that Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited is currently lifting petrol from its refinery at a price of N897 per litre.
A statement on Thursday by the Group’s Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejina, said that the company can not fix the price of petrol as it has yet to finalise its arrangement with the NNPCL
Chiejina said the attention of the group has been drawn to a headline, ‘NNPC lifts Dangote Petrol, sells at N897 per litre’, published in a national daily (not The PUNCH).
“We would like to state that NNPC has not commenced lifting of refined Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), commonly known as petrol, from our Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
“Therefore, the issue of fixing the price of petrol lifted from our refinery does not arise, as we are yet to finalize our contract with NNPC,” the statement read in part.”
The company further emphasised that “the PMS market is strictly regulated, which is known to all oil marketers and stakeholders in the sector,” and therefore, “we cannot determine, fix, or influence the product price, which falls under the purview of relevant government authorities.”
It urged the public to disregard the erroneous headline and reassured Nigerians of their commitment to transparency and fairness in their operations.
The Group Chief Executive Officer, Aliko Dangote, had revealed that the Federal Executive Council was working on a new pricing arrangement for petrol produced from the Dangote Refinery.
The 650,000-barrel-per-day facility officially unveiled its refined petrol on Tuesday with Dangote announcing that product will be in filling stations in the next 48 hours depending on the country’s national country.
“It is an arrangement which is designed and approved by the Federal Executive Council led by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“As soon as it is finalised, which he (Tinubu) is pushing, once we finish with NNPC, it can be today, it can be tomorrow, we are ready to roll into the market,” he said.
Hours after Dangote’s comments, NNPCL reportedly directed its retail outlets to raise the pump price of petrol to N855 per litre.
The development came barely two days after the company admitted to challenges in importing fuel due to an $8 billion debt.