History was made on September 3rd 2024 when Alhaji Aliko Dangote made a a public presentation of petroleum from its factory
The 650,000 barrel per day capacity refinery according to its owner was ready to start petrol supply within 48 hours to all its customers
This development was a huge relief to Nigerians who have been grappling with high cost and fuel shortage in close to three decades
Dangote refinery had earlier commenced the production of diesel and Jet A1 aviation fuel too
According to Devakumar Edwin, a vice president at Dangote Industries Limited, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd, the country’s sole importer of petrol, would exclusively purchase the refinery’s petrol
And the question on many people's lips have been , how can a competitor like NNPCL deter your price
The President of Dangote Group while taking journalists round the facilities after his announcement also said the Federal Executive Council will determine the price of the petrol
It is expected that when fully operational, the refinery will save Nigeria over 40% of the foreign exchange currently being spent on importation of petrol products
The $20bn refinery is the largest in Africa and also one of the largest in the world
While expectations have been high that the Dangote petrol will solve ALL our domestic needs , feelers seems to be proving such assumption wrong
For instance Dangote have not come out to categorically tell Nigerians how much its petrol will be sold per litre
The FG through the NNPCL last week increased petrol price to about N867 per liter ( an increament of 45% )
Will Dangote petrol be cheaper or higher
The company have set September 15th 2024 as the final roll out date for its product
Another worrisome issue was the initial statement by Dangote that NNPCL will the sole marketer of its product
This has been debunked by NNPCL which stated that Dangote should sell its product to whomever it pleases
As Nigerians wait for Dangote to come clean on the price of its petrol products , Nigerians will expect nothing but a reasonable lower price for its products compared to the imported petroleum for the following reasons
A. Dangote petrol is locally refined and won't be paying the cost of transportation and other duties
B. Its crude will be sourced locally ( as at today, 30 millions barrel of crude have been supplied to it by NNPCL
C. The Federal Government has mandated that crude oil be sold to Dangote refinery in Naira
All these are enough incentives to compel the price to be lower ( though it has been proved that the current price of fuel even at N867 is highly subsidized by Government)
But if what is currently obtainable in most of the products where Dangote have some level of monopoly ie Cement , Sugar, Fertilizers etc are anything to go by , then the expectations of many Nigerians will be dashed when the refinery eventually release the cost of its petrol
But one thing we cannot take away from the ground breaking achievement of Dangote with its refinery is that he has been able to acheive what most successive Nigerian government have not done in over 30 years
It is a big shame that a country that produces crude oil in large quantity does not have a single refinery of its own despite billions of dollars that were wasted in their " turnaround maintenance "
We wish Dangote Petroleum all the best as it strive to take Nigeria to the next level of energy security
Chris Kehinde Nwandu , the Executive Editor of CKNNews is a journalist, blogger , Chartered Arbitrator and Law Graduate