Dangote Refinery has said that it benchmarked its prices against international prices, stressing that it believes that its prices are competitive relative to the price of imports.
It said that if anyone claims they can land PMS at a price cheaper than what it is 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.
This was as it alleged that an international trading company has recently hired a depot facility next to the Dangote Refinery, with the objective of using it to blend substandard products that will be dumped into the market to compete with Dangote Refinery’s higher quality production, stressing that the development is detrimental to the growth of domestic refining in Nigeria.
Dangote Refinery stated these while reacting to recent alleged misinformation it claimed was being circulated by IPMAN, PETROAN, and other associations, adding that both organisations claim that they can import PMS at lower prices than what is being sold by the Dangote Refinery.
It noted that unfortunately, the regulator (NMDPRA) does not even have laboratory facilities which can be used to detect substandard products when imported into the country.
These were contained in a statement by Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer of Dangote Refinery, saying that post deregulation, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per litre for sale into ships and at N990 for sale into trucks.
Chiejina explained that this set the benchmark for Dangote Refinery’s pricing, adding that it has even gone lower to sell at N960 per litre for sale into ships while maintaining N990 per litre for sale into trucks.
The statement said that in good faith, and in the interest of the country, Dangote commenced sales at the prices without clarity on the exchange rate that it will use to pay for the crude purchased.
It further said; “We should point out that it is not unusual for countries to protect their domestic industries in order to provide jobs and grow the economy. For example, the US and Europe have had to impose high tariffs on EVs and microchips in order to protect their domestic industries.
“While we continue with our determination to provide affordable, good quality, domestically refined petroleum product 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,” it said.
