Petroleum marketers have halted fuel loading at the Dangote Refinery, citing the facility’s new policy of selling products exclusively in dollars.
Tripod Times reports that marketers paused bulk fuel loading over the past few days while awaiting both the refinery’s revised pricing framework and the updated costs of newly imported products.
IPMAN’s National Publicity Secretary, Chinedu Ukadike, told reporters via phone on Sunday that uncertainty over the next petrol price is forcing marketers to tread carefully.
The dollar-pricing proposal was firmly dismissed by FCCPC’s Ondaje Ijagwu in Sunday enquiries, as he reiterated the naira’s exclusive status as legal tender for domestic business.
According to Ijagwu, the commission’s apprehensions pushed the Federal Government to call a multi-sectoral meeting. Regulators, refiners, marketers, and other industry players were all invited to the table.
The goal was to address the growing tensions in the petroleum sector. “Our Agency stays perpetually alert, scrutinizing sectoral happenings keenly, while never shying from levying proper sanctions whenever solid proof emerges concerning restrictive market practices, shopper abuse, alongside additional statutory breaches beneath national trade fairness plus buyer safeguard legislation.”
