The Vice President, Oil & Gas, Dangote Industries Limited, Mr Devakumar Edwin, has said that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPC Ltd) will be the sole buyer of its refined fuel.

He also said yesterday that the 650,000 barrels per day capacity Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical that was built at about $20 billion at Free Zone, Lekki, Lagos, had started testing its refined fuel and would subsequently start flowing into the product tanks. He, however, did not state when the product would be in market for sale.

“We are testing the product and subsequently it will start flowing into the product tanks. NNPC Ltd is the sole importer of fuel, would buy its gasoline exclusively. If no one is buying it, we will export it as we have been exporting our aviation jet fuel and diesel,” he said.

But the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) opposed the idea that NNPC Ltd would be the sole buyer of Dangote fuel. The National Public Relations Officer, IPMAN, Mr. Chinedu Ukadike, made this known in an interview with New Telegraph yesterday.

He said: “The decision of Dangote may be influenced by the investment of NNPC Ltd in the building of the Dangote refinery because I am also aware that so many refineries try to deal with their investors rather than other stakeholders so that their investors will quickly recover their investments. “I do not know exactly the reason Dangote took that decision.

The problem Is that the monopoly that we have been talking about will still surface because we have been talking that the NNPC Ltd has been the sole importer of petroleum products. Now Dangote fuel is about to come and we are hearing that NNPC Ltd will be the sole offtake of the product.

Then the issue of competition may be a problem and there may still be monopoly in the deregulated downstream sector. “As independent marketers, we are also asking Dangote to also accept us as part of those who will off-take their product and give us the same environment with NNPC Ltd. “We are not comfortable with NNPC Ltd being the sole off-taker of Dangote fuel.” (New Telegraph)

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