Marketers of petroleum products in Nigeria have reportedly written to President Bola Tinubu to complain that the drop in price of Dangote Refinery’s diesel to N900 per litre, is negatively affecting their businesses.

Devakumar Edwin,  Vice President, Dangote Industries Limited, disclosed this on a Twitter Spaces session organized by Nairametrics.

Edwin highlighted some of the challenges facing the Dangote Refinery and its impact on Nigeria’s fuel supply and prices.

According to him, the refinery, located in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos, struggles to sell about 29 tankers of diesel per day due to low patronage from local petroleum product importers.

“As a result of this poor local patronage, the refinery exports most of its diesel and aviation fuel,” he said.

However, he said despite the challenges, 44% of the refinery’s petrol production capacity is sufficient to meet all of the country’s local demand.

Daily Trust reports that the Dangote Refinery, with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, started naphtha exports in March, low-sulphur straight run fuel oil (LSSR) exports in May, and began selling diesel and jet fuel domestically in April

In June, it started exporting diesel fuel meeting European specifications.