Dangote Refinery has broken its silence on the price of premium motor spirit (pms) otherwise known as petroleum from its refinery, saying its product is cheaper than the imported one.
The Dangote refinery disclosed this in response to comment from some marketers that imported PMS is cheaper than the one supplied from Dangote Refinery.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers' Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) had claimed that it is more expensive to buy fuel from Dangote.
Yakubu Suleiman, national assistant secretary of IPMAN, spoke in a television interview at the weekend.
"If Dangote has a product selling for N1,000, let's assume, and there's another place selling for N900, we can't just say, for the sake of our relationship with Dangote, that we'll instruct our members to buy there. We must go where the price is lower, where we'll get profit," he said.
But Dangote refinery in a statement by Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, described the claim by IPMAN and other marketers as "misinformation."
The statement disclosed that the refinery commenced sale at N960 per litre for sale into ships while maintaining N990 for sale into trucks.
He explained that the refinery benchmarked its prices against international prices and "we believe our prices are competitive relative to the price of imports."
The statement read: "If anyone claims they can land PMS at a price cheaper than what we are 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.
"Unfortunately, the regulator (NMDPRA) does not even have laboratory facilities which can be used to detect substandard products when imported into the country.
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"Post deregulation, NNPC set the pace by selling PMS to domestic marketers at N971 per litre for sale into ships and at N990 for sale into trucks.
"This set the benchmark for our pricing and we have even gone lower to sell at N960 per litre for sale into ships while maintaining N990 per litre for sale into trucks.
"In good faith, and in the interest of the country, we commenced sales at these prices without clarity on the exchange rate that we will use to pay for the crude purchased.
"At the same time, 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.
"This is detrimental to the growth of domestic refining in Nigeria. We should point out that it is unusual for countries to protect their domestic industries in order to provide jobs and grow economy.
"For example, the US and Europe have had to impose high tariffs on EVs and microchips order to protect their domestic industries.
"While we continue with our determination to provide of 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."
