The National President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Abubakar Maigandi, has raised questions about Aliko Dangote’s claim that the 650,000-barrels-per-day refinery has 500 million litres of petrol ready for supply. Maigandi expressed doubt since members assigned by Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) waited four days without being able to load fuel from the refinery.
Maigandi shared his concerns on ChannelsTV’s Sunrise Daily, stating that, despite IPMAN’s N40 billion payment to NNPCL, oil marketers haven’t been able to pick up fuel from Dangote’s facility.
“If [Dangote] can sell directly to us, we’re ready to buy the product,” he said. “Some of my marketers sent to load at Dangote’s refinery waited for four days without success. So I was surprised when Dangote said he has over 500 million litres of PMS.”
On Tuesday, Dangote had encouraged the NNPCL and marketers to source petrol directly from his refinery, stating it has enough fuel to meet Nigeria’s needs for over 12 days without imports. “As we speak today, we have 500 million litres in our tanks…this will take the country more than 12 days, you know, with no imports, with no production, nothing,” he assured.