Strong indication has revealed that Dangote Refinery’s observed reluctance in reviewing its monthly gantry price as agreed in October deal with marketers forced dealers to opt for importation considering the strong drop in international prices within the period under review.
Further findings showed that industry stakeholder started to loss confidence in the October deal as soon as it was observed that Dangote officials are becoming too reluctant to do the needful within the needed time frame.
It would be recalled that under the arrangement, Dangote temporarily suspended direct sales to independent marketers, who could only purchase 250,000 litres or less, forcing them to rely on the 20 approved marketers for supply.
An industry source made it further clear that “The arrangement between Dangote and 20 marketers has collapsed. Remember that there was an agreement in October, and they agreed on a particular price, and that every month, there will be a price review. So in the month of October, the price was shifted for the marketers, and they were given products at N806 per litre and sold gantry at N828 per litre.
“That was fixed, and they now stopped all forms of product sales to independent marketers who were only buying 250,000 litres or less. Due to the agreement, marketers who needed products had to go buy from the 20 marketers. This is because the marketers had mentioned in the agreement that Dangote won’t sell directly to other marketers but only to the approved members, and then the rest would buy from them.”
The official added that the initial system functioned smoothly, with products being loaded through ships and gantries, and additional interested parties gradually added to the approved list.
However, the deal began to unravel in November, when importers noticed that international petrol prices had fallen below Dangote’s selling price.
“But the agreement had a bit of issues in the month of November when importers saw prices at the international benchmark and that it was lower than the price Dangote was selling to them. They said it was supposed to drop to around N750 per litre. But Dangote was reluctant to review. This caused the heavy influx of imported petrol in November.”
However, when after the initial delays, Dangote slashed its gantry price to N699 per litre, the lowest in 2025, importers could not continue the deal as many had ordered products from overseas. but the move came too late to prevent losses.
The source also revealed that depot owners and marketers who had purchased products at N828 per litre in October but had not yet sold were left bearing heavy losses, while smaller marketers also struggled to adjust to the sudden price change.
Facts from data from the Major Energies Marketers Association of Nigeria and petroleumprice.ng during the period, the average landing cost of imported premium motor spirit dropped to N829.77 per litre, a price lower than the ex-depot price of the fuel produced locally.
The MEMAN data showed that the average landing cost of petrol as of October 30 was N829.77 per litre. This was a further drop in the landing cost, which was an average of N849.61 on October 13, N847.61 on October 14, N841.54 on October 20, and N839.97 per litre on October 21.
*Additional report from The Punch
