Marketers Warn Dangote Suit Could Destabilise Fuel Supply

The Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) has warned that the lawsuit filed by Dangote Petroleum Refinery seeking to void fuel import licences issued to marketers and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited could destabilise Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector. In a statement issued on Sunday, DAPPMAN said the import licences issued by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority are critical to maintaining Nigeria’s fuel supply chain and ensuring energy security. 

On March 25, the NMDPRA eased petrol import restrictions by granting a new batch of licences to local marketers, but two months later, Dangote refinery filed a fresh suit before the federal high court in Lagos, challenging licences issued or renewed by the regulator. The refinery argued that the licences breached an earlier court order maintaining the status quo and contravened provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act, which it said permits fuel imports only when domestic supply is insufficient.

DAPPMAN stated that the licences at the centre of this lawsuit are not administrative courtesies but the legal instruments through which Nigeria’s fuel supply chain functions, and that they were issued under the framework of the PIA by a regulator empowered to make such determinations. The association said the NMDPRA has consistently maintained that these licences exist to protect supply security, not to disadvantage any single producer, however large. 

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DAPPMAN added that its members had invested billions of naira in depot infrastructure, logistics and compliance systems based on the validity of the licences, and that a legal action designed to retroactively void those licences introduces uncertainty into the entire downstream supply chain at a moment when Nigeria can least afford it. The marketers said that while they respect the refinery’s right to seek legal remedies, no private refinery’s commercial interests should supersede the regulator’s responsibility to guarantee adequate fuel supply to Nigerians.