• ...asked to name marketer

Marketers of petroleum products in Nigeria have reportedly written to President Bola Tinubu to complain that the drop in price of Dangote Refinery's diesel to N900 per litre, is negatively affecting their businesses.

Devakumar Edwin, Vice President, Dangote Industries Limited, disclosed this on a Twitter Spaces session organized by Nairametrics.

"Petroleum product marketers in Nigeria have written to President Bola Tinubu to complain that the refinery local prices which have dropped from N1,200 to N1,000 and now N900 per litre are impacting their businesses negatively," he said.

Edwin highlighted some of the challenges facing the Dangote Refinery and its impact on Nigeria's fuel supply and prices.

According to him, the refinery, located in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos, struggles to sell about 29 tankers of diesel per day due to low patronage from local petroleum product importers.

"As a result of this poor local patronage, the refinery exports most of its diesel and aviation fuel," he said.

Edwin had earlier said Dangote Refinery products would be exported if the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and other petroleum dealers in the country refuse to patronise it.

"We have been exporting aviation fuel, we have been producing kerosene, we have been producing diesel, but yesterday, we started the production of PMS. So, that was the last stage. The only thing now left out is petrochemicals."

"So, the good news for the country is we have started producing PMS from our refinery," he had said on a radio programme.

Meanwhile, a marketer who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity challenged Dangote Refinery to name the marketer.

"I have never heard something so ridiculous like this. They just used this general term, 'marketers'.

"Our people just took up this thing without reading the meaning to it. I don't know which marketer he is talking about. It must be one joker somewhere," the source, a major marketer, said.