Dangote Refinery: Claims of Cheaper Imported PMS Are Misleading, Risking Quality and Health

• Dangote Refinery refuted claims that imported petrol is cheaper, asserting that such statements promote misinformation and threaten quality standards
• Anthony Chiejina emphasized that lower-priced PMS likely indicates substandard fuel, warning it could harm public health and vehicle longevity

Dangote Refinery has addressed claims by petroleum marketers that imported premium motor spirit (PMS) is cheaper than its locally refined product, asserting that such claims promote misinformation and threaten quality standards.

The Independent Petroleum Marketers’ Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) had suggested that it’s more cost-effective to buy imported fuel than from Dangote. IPMAN’s National Assistant Secretary, Yakubu Suleiman, cited the price disparity, stating that marketers are likely to buy where costs are lower.

“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’s Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, in a statement described the claim by IPMAN and other marketers as “misinformation.”

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.

“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 country’s interest, 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, intending to use 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 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.”