The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has extended its free petroleum products delivery scheme to Kano, Imo, Anambra and Nasarawa states.
The refinery said the move would cut distribution costs for independent petroleum marketers and create room for lower petrol prices.
The initiative, according to a statement on Sunday, initially covered Lagos, Ogun, Rivers, Kaduna, Abuja and Delta states. It is aimed at bringing products closer to marketers and retailers while removing the cost of transporting them over long distances.
By covering delivery costs, the refinery is taking away a major expense in the downstream distribution chain.
Fatima Aliko Dangote, Group Executive Director, Commercial Operations, Oil & Gas, WAEP and Fertiliser, Dangote Industries Limited, said the scheme would ensure savings from local refining reach businesses and consumers.
“The value of domestic refining must ultimately be felt beyond the refinery gate. By absorbing the cost of delivering petroleum products to our customers, we are removing a significant component of the distribution burden and creating room for those savings to flow through the value chain to consumers. Our goal is to make fuel distribution more efficient, reduce avoidable costs and support more competitive pump prices across Nigeria.”
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria welcomed the expansion. Its National Publicity Secretary and PRO, Chinedu Ukadike, said it would ease financial and logistical pressure on marketers.
“This gesture, if sustained, will be able to alleviate the sufferings of independent marketers. There has been the issue of financial hold-up, whereby marketers pay for products and are not loaded for days and weeks, and they suffer unnecessary hardship bringing the product down,” he stated.
He said the arrangement would free up marketers’ funds faster, improve cash flow and help businesses use their capital more efficiently.
Dangote said the cost savings would be more important for marketers serving areas far from the refinery, where haulage, vehicle operations, driver costs, insurance, road risks and other logistics add to expenses.
The scheme could also reduce risks linked to transporting large volumes of petroleum products over long distances.
The expansion comes as Nigeria’s downstream sector adjusts to rising domestic refining capacity and stronger market competition.
The Dangote refinery has a 700,000-barrel-per-day capacity and supplies refined products locally while expanding into international markets.
