Dangote refinery will sell petrol at international price, says FG

The Minister of Finance , Budget and National Planning , Zainab Ahmed , has said when Dangote Refinery kicks off next year , it may not significantly reduce the price of petrol because the refinery will be selling at the international price .

Ahmed said this is because the refinery is located at the Export Processing Zone in Lagos State .

The minister said this on NTA ’ s ‘ Good Morning Nigeria ’ programme on Monday, which was monitored by our correspondent .
She said the only thing Nigeria would not need to pay is shipping cost .

Zainab said , “ What we are doing is enabling the petroleum sector to actually grow . There have been a number of refineries that have been licensed for several years . None of them was willing to start refining under the regime that we had were fuel was controlled .

“ The Dangote refinery is sitting within an Export Processing Zone so they are insulated from that . When we buy fuel from Dangote , we will be buying fuel at the international market price . The only savings that we will be making is the savings of freight which is shipping .

“ But we will still have landing cost ; labour cost and the marketers will still have to put a margin . These refineries being those that are supposed to have come to operate can now come in because they are assured that when they produce , they can sell at market rate and recover their investments and make some reasonable profits. ”

She said the deregulation of the sector which led to the increase in petrol price was good for the economy as it would encourage investments in refineries.

Ahmed added , “ It will mean more refineries will open , they will employ people and fuel will be available in different parts of the country and not just relying on the government refineries