FG excuses self from NNPCL, Dangote clashes over petrol price

The Federal Government on Wednesday exonerated itself from the petrol pump price squabble between the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and private refinery, Dangote Refinery.

The government said both parties were at liberty to determine their market prices for consumers.

This position was revealed by Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, during a briefing of State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Onanuga who was joined by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital Communication and Engagement, O’tega Ogra, explained that since the petroleum market has been deregulated, both Dangote and NNPCL, as oil refiners and marketers, are allowed to operate according to economic market forces and set their prices for petrol, also known as Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

The Presidential spokesman explained that such a scenario would be beneficial to Nigerian consumers in the end as competitive alternatives and pricing wars tend to force prices down.

“The PMS price regime has been deregulated. Dangote is a private company. NNPC should not forget is a limited liability company,” he said.

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“Whatever controversy both of them are having is their own problem. Even if you go by the terms of Petroleum Industry Act, NNPC is on its own. Even though it’s owned by the federal government, the state government and local councils and everything, it is operating as a limited liability company.

“You can see that the private marketers have said that they find the NNPC or Dangote price too much for them, and they may resort to importing fuel.

“It is the consumers who benefit if a price war starts. If NNPC fuel is too much, the public market can go to the market and bring in their own fuel and sell at the price that they think is very reasonable and profitable for them.

“So, government is not dabbling into this controversy. Dangote is running a private company working on his own, and NNPC is a limited liability company that has the right to fix the price of its own product.”

The lowest pump price of petrol is currently at N895 per litre, even as NNPCL and Dangote continue to squabble over the exact cost at which the former buys the product from the latter, which has only recently opened its multibillion-dollar refinery in Lagos.