Businessman, Aliko Dangote, on Tuesday, assured Nigerians that petrol produced from his 650,000 barrels per day refining facility will be available at filling stations in the next 48 hours as modalities with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited are being formalised.
Dangote stated this during a press conference to announce the formal commencement of production of petrol at the refinery.
“Our PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) can be in filling stations within the next 48 hours depending on NNPCL,” he said.
Speaking on the pricing of the product from his refinery, he said, “It is an arrangement which is designed and approved by the Federal Executive Council led by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“As soon as it is finalised, which he (Tinubu) is pushing, once we finish with NNPC, it can be today, it can be tomorrow, we are ready to roll into the market.”
Last December, the refinery commenced operations at its $20bn facility located in Lagos with 350,000 barrels a day.
The refinery, which initially suffered some hiccups caused by the regulatory authorities, hopes to achieve its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day by the end of December.
The refinery began operations with the supply of diesel and aviation fuel to marketers in the country.
Africa’s richest businessman added that the introduction of naira for crude will reduce the demand for foreign exchange by 40 per cent.
“I want to thank President Bola Tinubu for creating this idea of Naira for crude and Naira for the product. Doing that will give a lot of stability to the Naira and remove 40 per cent of the demand for dollars. That’s not just it, there is a lot of round tripping,” he said.
Dangote further said it would become possible to track loaded trucks, thereby making it easier to compute the national
consumption.