The Nigerian National Petroleum Limited Company has announced it decision to allow marketers in the oil sector who have being operating under the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, to start the lifting of lifting of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) from its depot at a lower price.
It was also confirmed that the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority has also announced plans to issue import and off-taker licenses to the oil dealers to either import fuel directly or purchase products straight from the Dangote Refinery, which has been planned for the government to allow full deregulation of the oil sector.
The latest move has been taken by the company after the associations in the past day have issued threats to stop operations in the country with their reasons being the high costs associated with loading petroleum products from NNPCL facilities.
It was disclosed on Thiurday by IPMAN that the the cost of petrol from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery to NNPC was about N898/litre, it was disclosed that the NNPCL was selling the same product to the markets above N1000 per litre in Lagos State.
In his argument on Thursday, the IPMAN national president, Abubakar Maigandi, claimed that the price the NNPC was selling to the members was higher than the amount the product was purchased from the Dangote Refinery which has been a major point of controversy. The chairman had also claimed that the amount that was paid by the marketers to the NNPC was held for about three months without supply of the product.
He noted that the major challenge for the marketers was the outstanding amount that had become a debt with the NNPC. He noted that the NNPC claims include the purchase of the product from the refinery at a high price, which has been confirmed to be false. He claimed that the product was lifted from the refinery lower than N900 against the claim of N1,010/litre in Lagos, N1,045 in Calabar, N1,050 in Port-Harcourt, and N1,040 in Warri.
In a new move which has led to the latest agreement a peace meeting which was facilitated by the Director General of the Department of State Services, Adeola Ajayi, the NNPC has agreed and permitted the oil marketers to lift the product from the company which will also cover the N15bn owed to the marketers.
The agreement was disclosed by the National Publicity Secretary of IPMAN, Chinedu Ukadike, on Saturday in a chat with Newsmen after the peace meeting.
It was noted that the meeting attracted personalities such as the director from the NMDPRA and the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, which aided the discussions for the marketeers to lift the product from the company. He noted that the association was invited to the meeting by the Director of the Department of State Services to resolve the ongoing issue between the association and the NNPCL.
Speaking on the theme for the meeting, the publicity secretary noted that Dangote Refinery was non-compliant in selling PMS to IPMAN and that we are having a pricing problem with NNPCL. Based on this, the director of DSS invited us and brokered peace.
He noted that the two bodies had agreed to llow independent marketers to load out those tickets that amount to N15bn immediately, he noted that the mediation was led by the National President Abubakar Maigandi.
He also reveked that the it agreed for NMDPRA to grant IPMAN the import licenses to be able to embrace full deregulation in the sector.
When contacted, the NMDPRA spokesperson, George Ene-Ita, claimed not to be aware of the meeting. “I am sorry, I am not aware of any meeting or license approval. I was not part of it.”
Meanwhile, the NMPDRA has resolved to make a payment of N10bn to the oil marketers as outstanding payments under the Petroleum Equalisation Fund.
