By Jude Michael
The Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), of misleading the public on the price of fuel lifted from his refinery, asserting that the fuel purchased from his refinery on September 15th was priced 15% lower than NNPCL’s imported fuel.
According to the billionaire businessman, the price fixed by NNPC was not transparent and it was as a result of high costs spent on importing fuel from foreign countries.
He said, ‘What is going on is not really a disagreement per se. NNPC bought from us, this particular one, on the 15th of September, at the international price which they also bought over 800,000 metric tons of gasoline imported. The one that they bought from us is cheaper than the one they are importing. So when they announced our price, it was not really the real price.
‘Most likely, that is what it cost them, including profit, as well as whatever you know. They have never added profit to their cost. And then the other one is the one that they imported but people don’t know how much they spent in terms of the import. But their own import is almost or maybe about 15% to 20% more expensive than ours.
‘So what they were forced to do is to sell at a basket price or they want to remove subsidy. They can announce that they have removed subsidy, which is okay; everybody will adjust to it.’
