Nigeria’s largest refinery, Dangote Petroleum Refinery, has announced a temporary suspension of the sales of its refined petroleum products in Nigeria’s currency, Naira.
In a statement, Dangote Refinery cited the need to align its sales currency with its crude oil procurement obligations, which are denominated in US dollars.
The decision comes as the refinery faces a mismatch between its Naira sales proceeds and its dollar-denominated crude oil purchase commitments.
The company explained that its sales of petroleum products in Naira have so far exceeded the value of Naira-denominated crude oil it has received.
In order to address this imbalance, Dangote has opted to temporarily halt sales in Naira until it receives an allocation of naira-denominated crude cargo from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
The refinery also addressed recent online reports alleging that the suspension was due to an incident of ticketing fraud.
Dangote firmly denied these claims, describing them as “malicious falsehoods.” The company emphasized that its systems remain secure, with no instances of fraud reported.
Dangote reiterated its commitment to serving the Nigerian market efficiently and sustainably.
The refinery assured customers that it would promptly resume sales of petroleum products in naira once it receives the necessary naira-denominated crude allocations from NNPC.
“We remain committed to serving the Nigerian market efficiently and sustainably”, the statement read.
“As soon as we receive an allocation of Naira-denominated crude cargoes from NNPC, we will promptly resume petroleum product sales in Naira”.
The temporary suspension is the latest development following the suspension of the naira-for-crude oil deal by the NNPC with Dangote Refinery.
The NNPC had however stated that a new deal for crude oil supply was underway.
Meanwhile, Dangote Refinery had looked to diversifying its crude oil source by importing from Algeria, paying for 1 million barrels of crude due to be delivered this month.
