The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has disputed claims by President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, that the 650,000 barrels per day refinery currently has 500 million litres of petrol in stock for onward supply to Nigerians.
It said the claim by Dangote was questionable as IPMAN members drafted in by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to pick up products on its behalf, couldn’t load petrol from the Dangote Refinery in Lagos for four days and that oil marketers had not been able to pick products from the refinery despite having paid N40 billion to the NNPCL.
National President of IPMAN, Abubakar Maigandi, said this when he was featured as a guest on Channels television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.
This is just as the association said its members are ready and willing to buy petrol from the Dangote Refinery, if the product would be sold to them directly.
On Tuesday, Dangote had appealed to oil marketers to rather than import petrol, buy from his refinery, claiming that there was enough stock to meet the country’s needs.
Maigandi, however, expressed surprise over the claim that marketers were boycotting his refinery to buy imported petrol and that the refinery currently possesses a stock of fuel products sufficient to meet the nation’s needs for a full 12 days.
“If he (Dangote) can be able to sell the product to us directly, we can buy the product because we have to pay before we pick. Presently, we have N40 billion under the NNPCL custody but we cannot source the product.
“Just recently, there were some of my marketers that NNPCL sent to load in Dangote refinery, and those marketers stayed with their trucks for four days, and they cannot load. So, I was surprised when Dangote said he has over 500 million litres of PMS. We are ready to buy the product from Dangote if he is ready to sell it to us directly.”
The IPMAN president further said rather than sourcing Dangote petrol through the NNPCL, what the refinery ought to do is to register independent petroleum marketers to facilitate smoother loading of the product.
