1 month ago
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The National President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abubakar Maigandi, has assured Nigerians that ongoing negotiations with Dangote Refinery to begin direct loading of petrol from the 650,000-barrel-capacity refinery will be completed very soon.
He stated that the association is in talks with the firm on all necessary details and expressed optimism that the deal would soon be concluded.
Maigandi disclosed this at the inauguration of a monitoring and surveillance taskforce team to prevent oil bunkering, pipeline vandalism, adulteration of petroleum products, and other sharp practices on Wednesday in Abuja.
He also confirmed that the pricing issue with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has been resolved, and the association is focused on securing a deal with Dangote.
He said, “We are glad to announce that we will soon conclude arrangements with Dangote Refinery to lift PMS from the refinery.
“We have received our money back from NNPCL and are now trying to negotiate with other partners, namely Dangote.
“We are still negotiating with Dangote to see how we can begin to get products through him directly.
“We began negotiations with Dangote Refinery following an intervention by the DSS DG. NMDPRA was asked to issue us a licence to import and off-take from Dangote.”
The PUNCH reports that oil marketers have clamoured for direct loading of petrol from the refinery following the full deregulation of the sector by the government.
However, the ability to load products is under consideration following allegations that the volume of petrol produced by the Dangote Petroleum Refinery is currently insufficient to meet domestic demand.
As a result, dealers were to import the commodity to augment the supply from the $20bn Lekki-based plant, the marketers stated on Tuesday.
Further findings by The PUNCH revealed that a top official of the oil marketers met with Dangote officials earlier this week but could not finalise an agreement.
An oil marketer who spoke on the issue said another contingent of IPMAN officials will travel to Lagos for another meeting tomorrow (Thursday).
Speaking further in his address, the IPMAN chairman said the association is ready to assist the government in fighting economic saboteurs who distort growth by stealing from the nation’s wealth.
He stated that the event was a first step towards combating the ugly menace of economic sabotage that is fuelling the endemic economic crises facing the nation.
“It is a stark reality that our constituency, IPMAN, as a major player in the downstream sector of the oil industry, is a major stakeholder and contributes more than 80 per cent of the downstream distribution chain.
“It is as a result of this that the present executive committee deemed it fit to establish an internal mechanism to check the obnoxious activities of the economic saboteurs who are claiming to be our members and are affecting society at large.
“The taskforce is to help us clear the bad name we have been getting from Nigerians. The team was formed from the 36 states of the federation, and once they start moving, all those who are trying to sabotage the efforts of the government will be called to account, and everyone will know that IPMAN members are not involved,” he said.
