The fuel supply arrangement between the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and 20 major petroleum marketers, under which the parties agreed to offtake 600 million litres of petrol monthly, has collapsed over pricing disagreements, The PUNCH has exclusively learnt.
It was also gathered that the disagreement sparked the surge in petrol importation witnessed in the month of November 2025, with total imports rising to 1.563 billion litres, according to the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
The authority disclosed the import figure in its November 2025 Fact Sheet, titled State of the Midstream and Downstream Sector, which showed a sharp spike in imported volumes during the period the pricing dispute intensified.Recall that the deal, reached in October 2025, was structured as a pilot arrangement under which 20 depot owners were to collectively offtake about 600 million litres of petrol monthly, with each marketer lifting roughly 30 million litres from the Dangote Refinery.The National Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chinedu Ukadike, had confirmed in an interview that the refinery set the target after a strategic meeting with key players in the downstream sector.Ukadike said the agreement was part of efforts to stabilise supply in the domestic market and ease the recent surge in pump prices. According to him, the meeting, which included representatives of A.Y.M. Shafa, A. A Rano, NNPCL Retail, Salbas, and several other major distributors, focused on how to streamline product allocation and reduce the layers of middlemen contributing to price distortions.
“At the meeting, Dangote announced plans to sell to only 20 selected marketers who will serve as primary distributors to other dealers. Each of them will lift a minimum of two million litres, which will translate to about 600 million litres every month,” Ukadike said.