Home Latest Insights | News [Updated] NNPCL Issued Petrol Import License to Dangote Weeks After the Launch of Dangote Refinery

[Updated] NNPCL Issued Petrol Import License to Dangote Weeks After the Launch of Dangote Refinery

[Updated] NNPCL Issued Petrol Import License to Dangote Weeks After the Launch of Dangote Refinery

Editor’s Note: This has been debunked; no license was issued to Dangote Refinery according to the government.


The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has issued a license to the Chairman of Dangote Group Aliko Dangote, to import petroleum products, weeks after Dangote Refinery was commissioned.

Energy Times reports, citing sources at the presidency, that the license will see Dangote importing refined Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) into Nigeria. According to the report, the imported fuel would be discharged at the Dangote barge, where it will be pumped into tanks from.

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The decision, which is understood to be born out of Dangote Refinery’s unreadiness to refine petroleum products, will likely shift the sole importation of PMS from the NNPCL to Dangote. PMS imported by Dangote is expected to sell at a market-dictated price to marketers as work continues at the refinery, per the report.

Dangote Refinery, with the world’s largest production capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, was commissioned last month in Lekki, Lagos. Dangote promised during the launch, which was led by former President Muhammadu Buhari and graced by dignitaries from across Africa, that products from the refinery will hit the market by the end of July or August.

“Your excellencies, distinguished guests, our first product will be in the market before the end of July or beginning of August this year,” Dangote had said during the commissioning. “We have built a refinery with a capacity to process 650,000 barrels per day in a single train which is the largest in the world. We have selected the best plants, equipment, and the latest technologies from across the world.”

However, the promise appears unrealistic as the Dangote Refinery still has a lot of work to do to function at full capacity.

Findings revealed that the refinery was at the 88% completion stage with some equipment still being expected to be delivered by their manufacturers while those that have been fitted were yet to pass the integrity test at the point of commissioning, according to Energy Times. The report added that in addition to the above-mentioned backdrop, works on production lines, including electrical works, are largely behind schedule.

“With equipment still being expected and an integrity test yet to be conducted, I don’t see the refinery coming on stream until March 2024, the main reason why Dangote was granted a permit to import fuel pending the completion of work on the refinery,” Energy Times quoted the source as saying.

The $19 billion Dangote refinery boasts of 4.742 billion liters storage capacity, the biggest in Africa. The refinery’s 1,100 kilometers pipeline infrastructure is said to be the largest in the world, with the capacity to handle three billion standard cubic feet of gas per day.

Nigerians are largely counting on the refinery to mitigate the cost of PMS, following the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu last month which shot the prices up to N570 per liter. Thus, the report that the Nigerian people will have to wait until next year for the refinery’s products has dashed the hope of many.

As an alternative, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has been called upon to issue importing licenses to companies and individuals with the capacity to import petroleum products. The NMDPRA said last month that it is ready to issue licenses to interested companies. The move, which will ensure competition in Nigeria’s oil market and dismantle the NNPCL’s importation monopoly, appears to have been impacted by the newly-issued Dangote’s PMS import license.

The NNPCL has served as Nigeria’s sole importer of petroleum products for some years now, which suggests that issuing a Dangote petrol import license means handing the monopoly over to Africa’s richest man.

According to Energy Times, Dangote was chosen to bring in the product due to NNPCL’s 20% minority stake in the refinery. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is investing $2.76 billion in the plant, with the first payment being made in cash.

The second payment will be made through crude oil sales, while the final payment will come from the profits generated by the company.

Approximately one-third of the payment will be made through the supply of crude oil, with a deduction of around $2 and some cents. The remaining one-third, amounting to $850 to $900 million, will be paid from the business’s profits.

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25 THOUGHTS ON [Updated] NNPCL Issued Petrol Import License to Dangote Weeks After the Launch of Dangote Refinery

  1. Las Las all that refinery commissioning was only a hoax intended to deceive Nigerians and hand over fuel importation to Dangote. There was a country

  2. Reading through the report, you will see that the mafias sold both your present and future, so you are effectively indebted to them for life.

    Dangote decided to build a refinery, then along the way funding dried up, the government stepped in, hurriedly arranged for 20% acquisition nobody understood how the valuation was done, of course you are not permitted to question these, else they will check your surname and call you a wailer or an ingrate. There’s a small matter of the CBN channeling scarce dollars to this project, just to get it to the finish line, which has of course remained elusive.

    What did my compatriots get in return for all the direct and indirect sacrifices we have been making? Your reward was commissioning of uncompleted project, with a significant fanfare and crazy paraphernalia, and they still sold new lies on the day of the misguided commissioning.

    Wondering why they regularly commit unforced errors? Well, you need to go back to the fundamentals, what exactly is true about Nigeria and its economic and political systems? Almost everything was built on falsehood, and then people are regularly hired to maintain and advance the false foundations, and they keep faltering.

    Only truth can set you free.

    • I think that you have gotten the result of this agreement mixed up.
      This is a huge intensive capital program that requires a massive amount of investment from another source. This could have been done by the issuance of stocks to raise revenue if our financial system was developed. The government decided to bypass that process and made that investment.
      Nobody needs to blame Dangote for anything because he had made some good entrepreneurial decisions to get this refinery functioning. The ease to engage in sabotage and corruption is what I fear in this instance

      • Why cursing Buhari alone, it is what anyone can do if you are financially buoyant, as an entrepreneur; you are to identify a business opportunity and venture into it. We can’t possibly blame Buhari alone, Nigeria has 4 moribund refinery, since 1999, if the past administration has been fair enough to repair it one after the other as per 4 years tenure we won’t be in this condition. The truth of the matter is Nigeria as an entity is based on lies and deceptions, and nothing good will come out of such a country that has its foundation built on lies.
        I feel so sorry for this country. Now I see the meaning the picture of Dangote almost kneeling to beg Tinubu on the day of inauguration!

  3. Can somebody please tell me that this is not true! Finika the erstwhile Federal Minister for Aviation was accused of launching fake National carrier(Fake Nigeria Airways) Now Dangote of all people too foolery the whole Nation and the entire Africa into launching a moribund uncompleted refinery only to handover the entire fuel importation business singularly to the very refinery that is supposed to be producing the same product on a large scale? This is the same refinery that Buhari gave a directive to Emefiele the erstwhile CBN governor to release $1 billion just recently even after Buhari criminal terrorist organisation has left the government? . It’s so clear that all these Fulani race have decided to wreck our life and economy aground!
    If somebody did not rise up and be bold enough to stop all these fulani rogues from destroying our life then it’s time for us all to renegotiate the basis of our fake unity! It’s so categorically clear that this is another Ajaokuta failed project in the making! Maybe just as someone had said even from the North themselves is that the only solution to the Nigeria ever lingering crisis is violet revolution. Which ever way you look at it as long as all these Fulanis are managing our strategic National socio-economic/Political Assets the entire nation both presently and the future are doom, yes they have some few accomplish useful idiots among some southerner but those one are just errands boys like Emefiele and cos. Dangote Refinery is a scam for the continuity of strong and total Fulani enslavement and perpetual bondage of entire Southern Oil resources and our Natural Resources e.g Seaport to the Fulani exclusive ownership and monopoly!

  4. Dangote, with politicians in this country has high levels connections and agreement to destroyed the country. Dangote front for all the politicians. All the stoled money was invested in Dangote Companies with their shares in it. Why is cement sold at higher price where it was produced than neighbouring country. Why do we have to buy petroleum products at higher prices where we have excess crude oils and refineries. They don’t want to free Nigeria and Nigerians. But the questions is will they take all this wealth to the grave????????

  5. This Dangote is a scammer from the beginning of his life, those refinery commissioning is a fraud, Buhari has really damaged this country.

  6. Very sad to read that only Dangote refinery was issued licence to import petrol.
    What about other major oil companies like Shell,Mobile and Total etc.
    The market should have been opened for fair competition

  7. IF IT IS TRUE That President TINUBU GIVE IMPORT LICENSE TO DANGOTE THEN NIGERIANS SHOULD PREPARE THAT WE HAVE ENTER ONE CHANCE. BECAUSE SUBSIDY REMOVER DOES NOT MEAN THEY SHOULD INCREASE PETROL PRICE, IT WAS INCREASED TO HELP DANGOTE REFINERY.

  8. Who issued importation licence to Dangote refinery? I thought it is a mistake, as he is expected to be giving exportation documents. Nigerians have been fooled again after the Aviation Minister has done his own using Ethiopia Airline. Who do this fulanis take us to be?

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