Dangote Petroleum Refinery has said it plans to stop selling Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol, to major marketers that have valid petrol import licences.
According to industry sources, the move is targeted at companies still bringing in imported petrol even though more fuel is now being refined inside Nigeria.
According to figures cited by the refinery, imported PMS made up about 43 per cent of total petrol supply in July. That, Dangote said, is shrinking the local market available to Nigerian refiners.
The sources said the refinery will now give priority to marketers that do not hold import licences, as it added that marketers that continue to import under the Federal Government’s approved regime may no longer be supplied petrol.
The six major marketers currently licenced by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to import petrol are Matrix Energy, A.A. Rano, AYM Shafa, NIPCO, Pinnacle Oil and Gas as well as Bono Energy
Their licences, issued in May, cover a combined 720,000 metric tonnes, with individual allocations of between 60,000 and 150,000 tonnes.
By implication, Dangote Refinery said these six major marketers would no longer be supplied petrol by the refinery.
Industry sources added that Dangote’s concern is partly about quality, as it stated that imported petrol of uncertain standard could be blended with locally refined PMS before it reaches filling stations.
That would make it hard for buyers and regulators to tell Dangote fuel apart from imported product and could damage the refinery’s brand if quality complaints arise.
The refinery also questions whether NMDPRA has enough laboratory capacity to properly test imported petrol.
The decision marks a sharper turn in Dangote’s long-running argument against continued petrol imports.
The company has previously warned that if imports keep coming in, it may send more of its own refined products abroad rather than store large volumes of unsold PMS at high cost.
