Oil marketers have written a letter to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery expressing their willingness to buy refined petroleum products from the $20bn plant.
They disclosed this on Wednesday following Tuesday’s remarks by the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, that marketers were not buying products from the Lekki-based facility.
Dangote faulted the continued importation of petrol by oil marketers and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited despite the fact that the commodity was being produced by his refinery.
He raised the concern in Abuja on Tuesday after he was summoned by President Bola Tinubu, alongside the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, and the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari.
Responding to this on Wednesday, oil dealers under the aegis of the Petroleum Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria and their counterparts in the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria said they were willing to buy petrol from Dangote.
They specifically stated that they had approached the refinery a couple of times to express the interest of their members in lifting refined products from the plant.
“We have listened to him (Dangote) and as far as I’m concerned what he said is very strange to my hearing. PETROAN had written to him since 2022, we wanted to have a business meeting with him and understand the business dynamics,” PETROAN President, Billy Gillis-Harry, told one of our correspondents.
He added, “I sent the same letter to him (Dangote) today (Wednesday) to ask for a meeting, so, we can determine the modality of business. We cannot drive our tankers into the Dangote refinery to start buying products just like that. We must have a business meeting to determine the modalities, make our inputs and compare notes.
“We are willing to patronise Dangote but cannot do it in the air. We have to sit down and have a productive business meeting with him that is transparent enough. That is the challenge. So, we are willing but we can’t just fly into the plant and start loading products.”
Asked what was the response of the refinery, Gillis-Harry replied, “Up till this moment, there has never been any positive response, rather, all we get from them is that they repeatedly say to us that ‘we will meet.’ But we never met. So, at what point are we going to meet and conclude the business? Let Nigerians know that PETROAN is willing to buy from him.
“If he has 500 million litres, we are willing to be one of the off-takers, for with the size of our membership and retailers scattered across the country, we are a very productive business mix that should be good for him. So, he also has the job to woo us and to get us to work with him.”
Gillis-Harry said petrol retailers were awaiting the plant to fix a date for both parties to meet.
Also, speaking on the matter, the National President of IPMAN, Abubakar Maigandi, raised concerns over difficulties faced by IPMAN members in accessing fuel at the Dangote refinery despite a N40bn payment made through NNPCL.
Maigandi stated that despite NNPCL’s directive that IPMAN members pick up fuel at the Lagos-based refinery, some marketers waited with their trucks for four days without being able to load any product.
He expressed surprise at Dangote’s statement on Tuesday, claiming the refinery had 500 million litres of petrol in stock and ready to supply the nation.
“If the refinery truly has 500 million litres, then there should be no reason our members couldn’t load after four days. We are willing to buy the product directly if the refinery is ready to sell to us, but for now, our members can’t access, it even after paying,” Maigandi said while speaking on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.
