Expect new fuel price as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL will start supplying crude in naira to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery on October 1, 2024.
On September 13, 2024, the committee said that President Bola Tinubu and his crew approved selling crude to local refineries in naira and buying petroleum products in naira.
The panel said that this initiative would help the naira, get rid of unnecessary costs, and make more petroleum products available across the country.
“From October 1, NNPC will commence the supply of about 385kbpd (385,000 barrels per day) of crude oil to the Dangote refinery to be paid for in naira,” the committee had declared.
When they asked on Sunday if the crude oil plan for the Lekki plant is still on, the FIRS Chairman’s Media Adviser, Mr Dare Adekanmbi, said yes.
He said, “I can confirm to you that the Chairman, Sub-Technical Committee, Zacch Adedeji, is working day and night to ensure that things go according to plans.
He knows how important it is to have the agreement implemented as has been planned for the benefit of Nigerians.”
NNPC will provide around 11.5 million barrels of crude oil to the Dangote refinery every month. In return, the refinery will supply the same amount of refined diesel and petrol to the domestic market, all in naira.
“Diesel will be sold in naira by the Dangote refinery to any interested off-taker. PMS will only be sold to NNPC. NNPC will then sell to various marketers for now.
All associated regulatory costs (NPA, NIMASA, etc.) will also be paid in naira.
We are also setting up a one-stop shop that will coordinate service provision from all regulatory agencies, security agencies, and other stakeholders to ensure a smooth implementation of this initiative.”
Adedeji explained that the technical committee that worked to flesh out the initiative would transition to an implementation execution and monitoring committee that would be working out of Lagos for the next three to six months.
The committee includes the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs Lydia Jafiya; the FIRS boss, NNPCL, Central Bank of Nigeria, AfreximBank, and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.
Meanwhile, modular refineries are asking the government to figure out a way to supply crude to their plants too.
Nigerians are optimistic that the naira crude sale will drop the old petrol price and bring about a favourable new fuel price.
But the government said it won’t get involved in the price issue between NNPC and Dangote, since the petroleum sector is deregulated.