There Has Been Poor Local Patronage Since Dangote Refinery Launched – Devakumar Edwin

Marketers of petroleum products in Nigeria wrote to President Bola Tinubu to complain that the N900 per litre price of Dangote Refinery’s diesel is negatively affecting their businesses, Devakumar Edwin, Vice President, Dangote Industries Limited has said.

He recently had his say during a Twitter Spaces session organized by Nairametrics, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, the refinery struggles to sell about 29 tankers of diesel per day due to low patronage from local petroleum product importers, and it is currently resorting to exporting most of its diesel and aviation fuel.

He added that the traders are presently doing everything within their power to block sales within the country.

His words, “Petroleum product marketers in Nigeria have written to President Bola Tinubu to complain that the refinery local prices which have dropped from N1,200 to N1,000 and now N900 per litre are impacting their businesses negatively.

As a result of this poor local patronage, the refinery exports most of its diesel and aviation fuel.

We have been exporting aviation fuel, we have been producing kerosene, we have been producing diesel, but yesterday, we started the production of PMS. So, that was the last stage. The only thing now left out is petrochemicals.

So, the good news for the country is we have started producing PMS from our refinery.

Well, I explained how there has been a kind of a blockade from lifting our products within the country. The traders have been trying to block (it), and so now we have been exporting our petroleum products. PMS, we are ready to pump in as much as possible to the country.

But if the traders or NNPC are not buying the product, obviously, we will end up exporting the PMS as we are doing with the aviation jet and diesel.”