Depots Raise Petrol Prices to N1,230/Litre After Dangote Refinery Halts Gantry Loading

Private fuel depot owners across Nigeria have raised petrol prices to between N1,200 and N1,230 per litre after Dangote Refinery stopped gantry loading operations. The suspension followed the refinery's July 13 decision to switch from naira to dollar pricing for petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel at the gantry.

Industry groups have warned that the policy shift could push pump prices higher and gradually dollarise Nigeria's domestic fuel market.

Depot Prices Jump Across Major Hubs

Data gathered by Petroleumprice.ng, a platform that monitors downstream petroleum market activity, showed that depots in Lagos, Warri, Port Harcourt and Calabar revised their ex-depot prices to between N1,200 and N1,230 per litre on Thursday. The price adjustments followed Dangote Refinery's decision to stop product loading at its gantry from around 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Specifically, Aiteo and NIPCO depots in Lagos are selling petrol at N1,200 per litre. In Warri, Optima raised its price to N1,220, while A.Y.M. Shafa quoted N1,230. Liquid Bulk and Sigmund depots in Port Harcourt, as well as Mainland Depot in Calabar, are all pricing petrol at N1,230 per litre.

Marketers Brace for Higher Replacement Costs

A Lagos-based depot operator, who asked not to be named, said marketers were pricing in the risk of higher replacement costs once the refinery resumes and resets its ex-depot price. The operator said: 'When the gantry goes quiet, everybody down the chain starts marking up. Nobody wants to be caught selling old stock at old prices when the replacement cost resets higher.'

National Publicity Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chinedu Ukadike, said any rise in refinery operating costs would pass through to pump prices. He urged the federal government to sustain the naira-for-crude arrangement introduced in October 2024 to support local refining, warning that the shift to dollar-denominated sales could trigger further increases at filling stations, BusinessDay reports.

PETROAN and CPPE Warn on Dollarisation Risk

The President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), Billy Gillis-Harry, warned that the policy risked gradually dollarising the domestic fuel market as marketers passed foreign exchange costs on to consumers. Also, Muda Yusuf, Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), said pricing in dollars was commercially logical for a refinery that buys most of its crude in foreign currency, but stressed that Nigeria's lasting solution lay in increasing domestic crude supply and stabilising the naira.

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) said the country has enough petroleum products to meet current demand. The regulator explained that supplies of premium motor spirit (petrol), automotive gas oil (diesel), and liquefied petroleum gas (cooking gas) remain stable across the country. According to the authority, fuel is being supplied through a combination of local refining and imports, with continuous distribution to depots and filling stations to maintain steady availability nationwide.

For Nigerian consumers and businesses, the shift to dollar pricing at the refinery level means higher pump prices are likely in the short term. If the naira continues to weaken against the dollar, petrol costs could climb further, adding to inflationary pressure on households and transport operators across the country.