*Naira for crude’ll reduce demand for foreign exchange by 40%
By Nudoiba Ojen
PETROL produced from Dangote Refineries are expected to hit the filling stations within the next 48 hours all things being equal.
Aluko Dangote said in Tuesday that modalities with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited are formalised.
He spoke during a press briefing announcing the formal production of petrol at the Refinery.
Dangote said, “Our PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) can be in filling stations within the next 48 hours depending on NNPCL,” he said.
On the pricing of petrol from the refinery, Dangote 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, Dangote, Africa’s leading industrialist, commenced operations at his $20bn facility sited in Lagos with 350,000 barrels a day.
The refinery, which was initially troubled by regulatory battles, hopes to achieve its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day by the end of the year.
The refinery has begun the supply of diesel and aviation fuel to marketers in the country and now petrol.
Dangote also 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 stated.
He added that it would become possible to track loaded trucks, hence making it easier to compute the national consumption.
