Africa’s richest man, Mr Aliko Dangote, on Tuesday, announced that the much-awaited Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) from his 650,000 barrels per day refinery will hit the market within 48 hours.
The announcement by the Dangote Refinery CEO came amidst Tuesday’s adjustment of pump price by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL.
NNPC increased PMS pumped price by nearly 50% from N591 per litre to N855, raising speculations that the two incidents were related, especially as Dangote linked supplies from the refinery to the completion of “arrangement with NNPC”.
It would be recalled that there had been speculations about the price of petrol from the businessman’s refinery, with oil industry experts insisting that the Bola Tinunu’s administration was still subsidizing petroleum products.
Dangote told newsmen on Tuesday morning that the petrol from the refinery will start circulating within 48 hours, explaining that modalities with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited are being formalised.
“Our PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) can be in filling stations within the next 48 hours depending on NNPCL,” he said.
He said pricing would be in line with “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.”
650,000bpd Dangote Refinery
Last December, Dangote, Africa’s leading industrialist, commenced operations at his $20bn facility sited in Lagos with 350,000 barrels a day, but the production was dogged by allegations and counter-allegations with the NNPC, which he accused of frustrating his operation.
The refinery has begun the supply of diesel and aviation fuel to marketers in the country and now petrol.
Dangote affirmed that the quality of products from his refinery would compete favourably with those produced anywhere in the world, including the USA.
Dangote said, “They are now going to have good petrol while the engines of your vehicles will last longer. You will not be having an engine issue, which a lot of us were having. It won’t happen at all.
“The quality here will match that of anywhere in the world; US, America, we will make sure that nobody will beat us in terms of quality.
“As soon as we finalise with the NNPCL, our product will start going into the market. We will help to restore industry and manufacturing. We will begin real import substitution, which is what we have, saving foreign exchange, earning foreign exchange, which will stabilise the naira, and it will also help bring down inflation and cost of living,” he stated.
“I want to thank President Bola Tinubu for creating this idea of Naira for crude and Naira for the product. Doing that will give a lot of stability to the Naira and remove 40 per cent of the demand for dollars.”
“That’s not just it, there is a lot of round-tripping,” he stated.
He added that it would become possible to track loaded trucks, hence making it easier to compute the national consumption.
