Marketers Eye ₦700/Litre Diesel After Dangote Price Cut

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has projected that the Dangote refinery will reduce its diesel price further to N700 per litre.

The National Vice President of IPMAN, Hammed Fashola, stated this on Wednesday while appreciating the Dangote refinery for reducing the diesel price from over N1,200 to N1,000.

In an interview with Punch, Fashola disclosed that marketers have high expectations that the price of diesel will still go down.

He said the rebound of the naira against the dollar will bring about an appreciable reduction in the diesel price.

He said, “It is a good development, a welcome development. That is what we expected. Even we are still expecting that diesel will still come down more. Because if you look at the dollar rate to the naira now, the currency is doing well against the dollar. The exchange rate now is almost N1,000 on the black market. We still expect that the dollar will come down more.”

The IPMAN boss explained that the price would be reduced because of the challenges of shipment, customs duties, and other issues that have been removed since the product is being produced locally.

Fashola stated, “When you look at the diesel being produced here, there are lots of factors that have come to play; like the issue of shipment, the issue of tax, Customs and others. All those are not there again. So, we marketers, we are expecting diesel to come to like N700 per litre; that is our prayer and at that level, it will be a blessing to everybody. That is what we are looking at. What we produce here must be quite different from what is imported. That is what we expected.”

He spoke further that, “We all supported Dangote, we all prayed for him. We appreciate that the price is coming down, we still expect that the price will come down more and it will be affordable for citizens.”

Dangote began selling diesel about two weeks ago, crashing the cost from N1,600/litre to N1,250/litre.

Last Tuesday, the refinery announced another price cut, saying the fuel would now be sold at N1,000/litre.