The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, has authorised major petroleum marketers to commence lifting the premium motor spirit, PMDS, otherwise known as petrol, from Dangote Petroleum Refinery under the existing agreement between it and the refinery.
The initial agreement stated that NNPCL is the sole distributor of the refinery’s petrol with the first batch of the consignment put at 16.8 million liters lifted by NNPCL’s retail entity.
Some major marketers, including 11 Plc have already lifted the product for distribution to their outlets in Lagos and other parts of the nation.
One of the marketers who pleaded anonymity, said: “I can confirm that we have some major marketers already lifting from the Dangote Refinery, but it is still under the NNPC arrangement with the refinery, in other words, we are lifting NNPC products from the Dangote refinery. It is not our product. We have no direct arrangement with the refinery.”
Recall that Dangote Refinery had made NNPCL the sole buyer of its Petrol for the local market.
But NNPCL insisted that other oil marketers are free to buy directly from the refining company since the market is now fully deregulated.