NNPCL: Dangote, other refineries won’t reduce petrol price

The Port Harcourt refinery

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) says the production of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol, by Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Port Harcourt Refining Company, and others in Nigeria will not change the pump price of the product.

The Star had reported that the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, disclosed that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State, would start delivering refined products to the Nigerian market from July 2023.

The $18.5 billion refinery with 650,000 barrel production capacity was inaugurated by former President Muhammadu Buhari on May 22.

“Our first products will be in the market before the end of July, beginning of August this year,” Dangote had said, adding that the refinery would export to 53 African countries which depend on other countries for petroleum products.

However, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, in an interview with Arise TV on Thursday, June 1, said the notion that petrol prices would reduce once the country starts domestic production was false.

Kyari said: “There is a notion that if the product is processed locally, prices will reduce. Let me make it clear that it is not going to change anything.

“If you produce locally, the refineries will also input the cost of production and other things and it will be sold at the current price.

“There will also be no subsidy when local production starts because there is no cash-to-back subsidy, this country no longer has the resources to continue with subsidy.”

He further disclosed that the Port Harcourt Refinery would be delivered by the end of the year, adding that the facility was expected to further boost local production of petrol.

Kyari, therefore, said the removal of subsidy on petrol would allow new entrants into the oil market.

The NNPCL boss stated that the entry would eradicate monopoly, adding that competition in the market would lead to a reduction in the price of petrol across Nigeria.

It would be recalled that the NNPCL, on Wednesday, May 31, adjusted petrol pump price to N488 in Lagos and over N500 in other states, the development which caused panic and hardship in the country.

The Star