THE Independent oil marketers, yesterday, said plans have been concluded for them to lift the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL premium motor spirit, PMS, otherwise known as petrol, from the $20 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
This was even as major marketers, including 11 Plc, Total Energies, AA. Rano and others continued to lift the product to their retail outlets.
Speaking in a telephone interview with Vanguard, yesterday, the National President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Abubakar Maigandi, said: “We have concluded arrangements for the lifting of the product from Dangote Refinery. We are going to be lifting NNPCL petrol from the refinery.
“We are looking forward to lifting, most likely from next week. By that time, everything, including pricing would have been resolved.”
Also, it was reliably learned that plans have been made to deliver the product to the private depot owners in Lagos and other locations.
On his part, the Executive Secretary of Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria, DAPPMAN, Olufemi Adewole, could not be reached, yesterday.
But a reliable DAPPMAN source, who pleaded to be anonymous, said: “Depot owners are currently selling imported product. We have plans to get Dangote refinery petrol. We have huge storage capacity to store and sell the product.”
The NNPCL has already authorised major petroleum marketers to lift the petrol from the Dangote refinery under the existing agreement between it and the refinery.
However, the Executive Vice-President, downstream at NNPC, Adedapo Segun, said oil marketers have not been able to import petrol despite the import permits granted to them.
He said: “When the marketers go to NNPC to get the permit or license to import, typically they will say they want to import x amount of automotive gas oil (AGO), aviation turbine kerosene (ATK), and some of them include petroleum motor spirit (PMS).
“They then go to market, check the market indices and say to themselves: PMS is still being sold below cost.
“They may have the approval to bring in ATK (aviation fuel), AGO (diesel), and PMS (petrol), but they ended up bringing only AGO and ATK.
“They do not bring in PMS because the market is still not right for them. So, it is not because NNPC wants to be the sole importer or provider of PMS, it is because the other marketers won’t do it if it’s not profitable.”
“The market value of PMS is still higher than the N766 or N765 or N799 that NNPC is selling. So, there is no way the marketers would bring it in. There’s no way the marketers would also buy from Dangote.
“The situation has not changed. So, NNPC’s off-taking is only because the others would not buy at the price Dangote will be willing to sell, which is reasonable. As soon as the price allows it, marketers would buy directly from Dangote.
“So, instead of saying NNPC is the only off-taker, let’s put it this way: NNPC is the only entity that is willing to offtake because NNPC has a role under the law to be the energy provider of the resort.”