L--R, Vice president Oil & Gas, Dangote Industries Ltd, Devakumar Edwin, Minister of Finance, Oluwale Edun, Vice president Business Unity, Dangote Industries Ltd, Olakunle Alake, Chairman MRS Oil & Gas, Sayyu Dantata, at the Flag Off of Petroleum Motor Sprint (PMS) product (Petrol) from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Lekki Lagos on Sunday, September 15, 2024
Strong indications suggesting that the almighty relevance of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited especially in the business of Petrol (PMS) sales in Nigeria is beginning to collapse are becoming clear and clear as the days go by.
Otherwise, since to coming on stream of Dangote Refinery and most importantly, its resumption of direct sales of products to marketers, NNPCL is no longer at ease as far as PMS dominance is concerned.
Analysts say this is because the NNPCL is no longer the exclusive importer and distributor of refined petroleum products.
Currently, some marketers are changing and rebranding. Remember that there was a time NNPCL was the sole distributor and importer of petrol. So, marketers then gave their filling stations as franchises so that they could get products.
Before now, marketers normally give their companies to NNPCL to be able to have petroleum products. But now that the game has changed, you can even see some marketers now changing to MRS filling stations.
This is because MRS is now selling cheaper than any other station.
the key factor here is that people want where they want to get turnover and return on investment. If you are carrying Total on as a brand name and Total is not giving you petrol products, what is the sense of carrying the name? You have to remove it and get a better alternative. Most of those filling stations (that are changing name), NNPC don’t own them. NNPC only collected them on the franchise.”
If this trend continues, many Nigerians will call for either the scraping of NNPCL or returning it to a full parastatal which it was from Day one after all.
