The President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has raised concerns over rising logistics and regulatory bottlenecks stifling its competitiveness, disclosing that port-related charges have made it more expensive for oil marketers to lift products from its Lekki-based refinery than from offshore storage depots in neighbouring countries like Togo.
Dangote stated that domestic marketers are grappling with multiple charges levied at both the point of loading and discharge when sourcing products from the $20bn refinery, a cost structure not applicable when importing from offshore terminals like the Lomé Floating Storage Terminal.
According to him, this bottleneck fuels the 69 per cent continued import of refined petroleum products, making Africa a destination for cheap, often toxic petroleum products, many of which are blended to substandard levels that would not be permitted in Europe or North America.
He declared this at the just concluded Global Commodity Insights Conference on West Africa’s refined fuel market, jointly organised by the NMDPRA and S&P Global Commodity Insights in Abuja.
“In terms of port charges, it is currently more expensive to load a domestic cargo of petroleum products from the Dangote Refinery, as customers pay both at the point of loading and at the point of discharge. But when they load from Lome, which competes with us, they pay only at the point of discharge. This is simply unfair and unsustainable,” Dangote lamented.
He stated that such a structure inadvertently incentivises fuel importation over local refining, defeating the purpose of self-sufficiency and the Nigerian Government’s plan to curb foreign exchange pressure.
GIK/APA