The Federal Government is projected to spend a staggering N236bn monthly to subsidise petrol imported by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and sourced from the Dangote Refinery. This comes despite growing calls from key stakeholders, including Dangote Group’s CEO, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, for the complete removal of fuel subsidies to allow for a transparent determination of actual petrol consumption in Nigeria.
Dangote’s refinery, which began supplying 25 million litres of petrol daily into the domestic market, has forced the NNPC to subsidise petrol by about N3.3bn daily for local marketers. Additionally, the landing cost of imported petrol is N1,117 per litre, with the NNPC selling it at N895 per litre, incurring a subsidy of N4.59bn daily on these imports.
The financial strain of subsidising both Dangote and imported petrol has sparked renewed debates about the sustainability of fuel subsidies, especially as major energy marketers have begun lifting products from the Dangote refinery. Alhaji Dangote and other industry experts have urged the Federal Government to fully eliminate subsidies to prevent the economy from being further burdened by inflated costs.
