Aliko Dangote Tuesday released official samples of petrol from his refinery, assuring that the local sale of the fuel will help stablise the naira by helping to correct distortions in the value of the local currency compared with the dollar.
Describing the development as historic, Dangote said the refinery located in Lagos will assist in knowing the true consumption of petrol in Nigeria since every loaded truck can be tracked.
Dangote, who spoke during a live programme relayed on Arise Television, lauded President Bola Tinubu for all the support to ensure the dream became a reality.
The 650, 000 barrels per day facility is expected to serve the entire Nigerian market as well as export to the West African Sub-region as well as the global market eventually.
In about the last 28 years, Nigeria has not produced Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol after its four official refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna broke down.
Several governments in the past have spent billions of dollars on turnaround maintenance for the refineries but without results. Nigeria spends over $10 billion annually on the importation of petrol for its over 200 million citizens.
Underscoring the importance of the event, Dangote during an interview, stated that since 1974, Nigeria has had fuel scarcity in various degrees, but said that that was about to become a thing of the past.
“It’s a very historic, monumental achievement, which I think I must congratulate the people of Nigeria and the government of President Bola Tinubu for giving us all the support to be where we are today. In the last 28 years we haven’t really had this sort of achievement.
“You can see that even there are some videos of 1974, where we had fuel queues, and those fuel queues are still here. This will eliminate all fuel queues in Nigeria. This will improve the health of everybody. This will also make sure that there is consistent supply to the market. It will also bring the real demand of PMS.
“There will be no paper transaction. It will also help to make sure that, you know, it corrects this distortion of the Naira, bring stability to the Naira, bring growth, development and prosperity,” Dangote stated.
Dangote also took time to display samples of petrol and diesel from the new refinery, stressing that it is the first in the country to produce Euro 5 fuels of less than 10ppm, which contain lower sulphur and prolong engine life.
The billionaire businessman stressed that what this means is that it will help the vehicle engines last longer, while the health of people and that of the environment will not be polluted.
“This is the real thing, Euro 5 diesel, for the first time in the history of Nigeria. We are actually testing for all parameters. Our lab actually is not number two, it’s number one in the world,” he added.
According to Dangote, the imminent release of the product into the Nigerian market will not only ensure stability of the naira, but help to minimise round-tripping.
“This will give a lot of stability for the Naira, where now you remove 40 per cent of the demand for dollars in the market, and that will actually stabilise the market. But that’s not it. As you know, there’s quite a lot of what you call round-tripping, where people now do documentation and the fuel does not come into Nigeria, and this is a fact.
“So right now, as we have this refinery working, it will show the true consumption of Nigeria. We can track every single loaded trucks, and we will try as much as possible to track the loaded ships. Trucks, we can tell you where they are.
“Just like now, in some of the projects that we do, we can tell you exactly the consumption pattern. But that is a discussion for another day. Today’s discussion is just to celebrate and to thank God Almighty for bringing us to this stage of now producing gasoline.
