The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria is prepared to engage in discussions with Dangote Petroleum Refinery between Tuesday and Wednesday to finalize agreements concerning the pricing and procurement of petrol from the facility.
Information obtained on Sunday indicated that the Petroleum Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria had been requested by the $20 billion Lekki-based refinery to re-submit its petition for petrol procurement.
This development coincides with PETROAN expressing a positive outlook that the price of petrol may decrease in the forthcoming days, contingent upon the full establishment of competition within the downstream oil sector, as marketers commence the loading of the product from the refinery.
In the meantime, IPMAN characterized the prospective agreement with the Dangote refinery as a pivotal measure in the association’s continuous endeavors to streamline the procurement of petroleum products, thus enhancing the stability and efficacy of the nation’s fuel supply chain.
Last week, the Federal Government authorized petroleum marketers to procure petrol directly from the Dangote refinery without the necessity of interfacing with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
The Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Naira-crude sale implementation committee, Wale Edun, had in a statement, said, “Moving forward, petroleum product marketers are now able to purchase PMS (petrol) directly from local refineries without the intermediary role of NNPC.
“Marketers are encouraged to initiate direct purchases from refineries on mutually negotiated commercial terms, which will promote competition and improve market efficiency.”
Providing an update on Sunday, the National Publicity Secretary of IPMAN, Chinedu Ukadike, said the association hoped to meet with officials of the Dangote refinery for discussion as it is ready to commence a healthy business relationship with the refinery.
Ukadike, who spoke during an interview on Arise TV, said the association had acquired tank farms to enhance its storage facilities, thus addressing a challenge that had previously hindered operations.
He said, “We hope to sit down with Dangote maybe Tuesday or Wednesday and if they give us a template or price, we will move to Dangote. I want to reassure you that we have all it takes to off-take whatever Dangote will give to us. I don’t know why they are dragging their legs to discuss with marketers, maybe it is politics.
“The more we take action in terms of distribution lines, the price will come down, we are not afraid of this competition, we have organised ourselves and are ready to compete because this is the survival of the fittest.
“The issue of not having tank farms is gone because we have addressed the issue and now have farm tanks and anywhere Dangote says they will give us our products, we will distribute them to our marketers.”
On his part, President PETROAN, Billy Gillis-Harry, told The PUNCH his group had been asked to resend their request to lift petrol from the plant.
“We have written to them (Dangote) several times and they are fully aware of what PETROAN has been doing. One of the executive directors there called me to say that they are going to set up a meeting with us, so we are waiting for that to happen. Hopefully, we can do that this week.
“We are willing to take products from all of them, NNPC, traders, importers, Dangote refinery, modular refineries, etc. So, we are in that pursuit. We have not received confirmation of the meeting with Dangote yet, but we have been told to resend our request, which we have done.
