By Damilare Adeleye
Dangote Group has dismissed a statement by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited that its petrol product was sold at N898 per litre, describing the claim as “misleading and mischievous”.
The NNPCL earlier on Sunday announced its fuel purchase from Dangote Refinery at a rate of N898 per litre.
The Nigeria-owned oil company had dispatched about 300 trucks to the 650,000-barrels-per-day capacity refinery in Lagos on Saturday, with loading operations commencing on Sunday.
Spokesperson for the NNPCL, Olufemi Soneye, on Sunday told Daily Trust the company bought the fuel as N898 per litre contrary to reports claiming N760.
“We successfully loaded PMS at the Dangote Refinery today. The claim that we purchased it at N760 per litre is incorrect. For this initial loading, the price from the refinery was N898 per litre,” he said.
However, Anthony Chiejina, Dangote Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, in a statement on Sunday evening, discarded the claim.
He said, “Our attention has been drawn to a statement attributed to NNPCL spokesperson, Mr. Olufemi Soneye, that we sell our PMS at N898 per litre to the NNPCL.
“This statement is both misleading and mischievous, deliberately aimed at undermining the milestone achievement recorded today, September 15, 2024, towards addressing energy insufficiency and insecurity, which has bedeviled the economy in the past 50 years.
“We urge Nigerians to disregard this malicious statement and await a formal announcement on the pricing, by the Technical Sub-Committee on Naira-based crude sales to local refineries, appointed by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, which will commence on October 1, 2024, bearing in mind that our current stock of crude was procured in dollars.
“It should also be noted that we sold the products to NNPCL in dollars with a lot of savings against what they are currently importing. With this action, there will be petrol in every local government area of the country regardless of their remote nature.”
“We assure Nigerians of availability of quality petroleum product and putting an end to the endemic fuel scarcity in the country,” he added.