In a surprising development, Dangote Refinery has clarified that it sold Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) in U.S. dollars, refuting earlier claims of a sale price of N898 per litre.
Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer for Dangote, issued a statement on Sunday to firmly counter the allegations made by NNPCL regarding the pricing of fuel. Chiejina emphasized that the transactions between Dangote Refinery and NNPCL were conducted in dollars, not in naira.
This clarification comes after NNPCL’s Chief Spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye, previously claimed that the company had purchased PMS from the Dangote Refinery at the reported price of N898 per litre.
Dangote’s swift response has set the record straight, leaving many questioning the accuracy of NNPCL’s earlier statement.
He stated, “We successfully loaded PMS at the Dangote Refinery today. The claim that we purchased it at N760 per litre is incorrect. For this initial loading, the price from the refinery was N898 per litre.” According to Soneye, over 70 trucks had already been loaded.
This follows an earlier report about NNPCL moving approximately 300 trucks to the massive 650,000-barrel capacity refinery in Lagos over the weekend, with loading kicking off on Sunday.
But in its statement, Dangote Refinery said, “Our attention has been drawn to a statement attributed to NNPCL spokesperson, Mr. Olufemi Soneye, that we sell our PMS at N898 per litre to the NNPCL.
“This statement is both misleading and mischievous, deliberately aimed at undermining the milestone achievement recorded today, September 15, 2024, towards addressing energy insufficiency and insecurity, which has bedeviled the economy in the past 50 years.
“We urge Nigerians to disregard this malicious statement and await a formal announcement on the pricing, by the Technical Sub-Committee on Naira-based crude sales to local refineries, appointed by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, which will commence on October 1, 2024, bearing in mind that our current stock of crude was procured in dollars.
“It should also be noted that we sold the products to NNPCL in dollars with a lot of savings against what they are currently importing. With this action, there will be petrol in every local government area of the country regardless of their remote nature.
“We assure Nigerians of availability of quality petroleum product and putting an end to the endemic fuel scarcity in the country.”
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