A senior management official of the Dangote Group on Monday revealed that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has been subsidising the petrol and diesel it sells to the Nigerian market.
According to the official, who spoke to our correspondent in confidence due to the lack of authorisation to speak, the company’s N1,200/litre ex-depot price for petrol is below the competitive market price, considering the jump in crude prices following the US-Iran war.
The report that the war in the Middle East triggered an oil price surge when the Strait of Hormuz was blocked by Iran. From $66 per barrel on February 28, Brent, the global benchmark for crude, jumped above $100 a barrel.
As a result, Dangote raised its petrol gantry price from N774 to N1,200 as of the time of filing this report. The oil price hike also affected diesel and aviation fuel.
In the aviation sector, airlines are planning to shut down due to an over 350 per cent rise in Jet A-1 prices. Dangote supplies over 90 per cent of the country’s aviation fuel needs.
The Vice President of the Airline Operators of Nigeria, Allen Onyema, recently disclosed that prices skyrocketed from about N900 per litre before the Iran crisis to between N2,700 and N2,900, with some marketers selling as high as N3,500.
Speaking with our correspondent, the Dangote refinery official said the $20bn plant has already optimised the prices of petrol and diesel, stressing that it couldn’t have subsidised aviation fuel too.