DESPITE the commencement of petrol production by two major refineries in Nigeria in the last three months, oil marketers have continued to import and distribute the product nationwide.
This newspaper gathered on Wednesday that marketers imported 2.3 billion litres of petrol between September 11 and December 5, 2024.
The continued importation of petrol is contrary to a public announcement by some group of marketers who earlier stated their intention to halt petrol imports and focus on domestic supply.
The local refineries are the 650,000 barrel per day capacity Dangote Petroleum Refinery located in Lagos and the 210,000bpd capacity Port Harcourt Refining Company in Rivers State. PHRC currently produces from its old plant with a capacity of 60,000bpd.
The Dangote refinery began selling petrol in September, while the Area 5 facility of the Port Harcourt refinery started operations last Tuesday.
Despite this, recent findings by The PUNCH revealed that in the past three days alone, a total of 52,000 metric tonnes of petrol were brought into the country.
About 1322.76 litres of petrol weighs one metric tonne. This implies that 68.74 million litres of imported fuel was brought in by dealers in three days.
For decades, Nigeria depended on the import of petroleum products to meet local demands. The situation remained even after the commencement of production by the Dangote refinery in September because of its price and insufficient output. During this period, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited was the sole off-taker from the refinery.
But after intense discussions, the Federal Government, in a statement from the finance ministry on October 11, 2024, announced that oil marketers were now free to negotiate the purchase of petrol directly from the Dangote refinery without recourse to NNPC.
This allowed for direct negotiations. Already the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria has signed an agreement with the refinery for product offtake, with negotiations ongoing with the Petroleum Products Retails Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria.
Amid these, oil marketers promised to stop fuel import and focus solely on domestic supply.
Last week, the PETROAN National President, Billy Gillis-Harry, told our correspondent that its members would temporarily suspend the importation of petrol for the next 180 days due to the coming onstream of the Dangote and Port Harcourt refinery and production ramp-up plans by the refineries.
Similarly, major petroleum marketers announced a suspension of petrol imports following a significant boost in local supply from the Dangote Refinery, which has ramped up its operations.
The association, at a webinar last week, said its members have sourced a total of 148 million litres of petrol from the Dangote refinery over the past 10 weeks, contributing to a major shift in the country’s fuel supply dynamics.