In the conflict over fuel pump prices between Dangote Refinery and the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, or NNPCL, the federal government has thrown in the towel......See Full Story>>.....See Full Story>>
According to the Federal Government, the two parties are free to choose their own market prices for customers.
President Tinubu’s Special Advisor on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, briefed State House correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday about the Federal Government’s stance.
He clarified that Dangote and NNPCL, as oil refiners and marketers, are permitted to operate in accordance with economic market forces and establish their rates for petrol, also known as Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), since the petroleum industry has been deregulated.
According to the presidential spokesman, such a situation would ultimately benefit Nigerian consumers because price wars and competing alternatives drive down costs.
Onanuga said: “The PMS price regime has been deregulated. Dangote is a private company. NNPCL you should not forget is a limited liability company.
“Whatever controversy both of them are having is their own problem. Even if you go by the terms of the Petroleum Industry Act, NNPCL 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.”
Even if NNPCL and Dangote are at odds over the precise price at which the former purchases the product from the latter, the lowest petrol pump price at the moment is N895 a litre.