By our Reporter
Aliko Dangote, Chairman of Dangote Group, has stated that petrol product was his refinery in Lagos State is cheaper than the ones imported by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
Dangote, during his recent interview with Bloomberg, noted that the fuel purchased from his refinery on September 15th was priced 15% lower than NNPCL’s imported fuel.
He added that the price fixed by NNPC was not real market reflection and it was as a result of high costs spent on importing fuels from foreign countries.
He said: “What is going on is not really a disagreement per se. NNPC bought from us this particular one, on the 15th of September at the international price. Which they also bought over 800,000 metric tons of gasoline imported. The one that they bought from us is cheaper than the one they are importing. So when they announced our price, the guy I don’t whether he was authorised or not, but it was not really the real price.”
He continued: “Most likely that is what cost them, including profit, including whatever you know they have never added profit to their cost. And then the other one is the one that they imported but people don’t know how much they spent in terms of the import but their own import is almost or maybe about 15% to 20% more expensive than ours.
“So what they were forced to do is to sell at a ‘basket price’ or they want to remove subsidy, they can announce that they have removed subsidy, which is okay, everybody will adjust to it.”