Dangote refinery extends free delivery of petroleum products to four more states

The Dangote Petroleum Refinery said on Sunday it has expanded its free product delivery initiative to Kano, Imo, Anambra and Nasarawa states, widening a programme that absorbs transport costs for independent marketers and could help lower pump prices.

The initiative previously covered Lagos, Ogun, Rivers, Kaduna, Abuja and Delta. Under the arrangement, the refinery bears the cost of moving products from its plant to marketers, removing a major expense from the downstream distribution chain.

Fatima Aliko Dangote, Group Executive Director, Commercial Operations at Dangote Industries Limited, said the programme was designed to ensure that the benefits of domestic refining reach businesses and consumers.

“The value of domestic refining must ultimately be felt beyond the refinery gate. By absorbing the cost of delivering petroleum products to our customers, we are removing a significant component of the distribution burden and creating room for those savings to flow through the value chain to consumers,” she said. “Our goal is to make fuel distribution more efficient, reduce avoidable costs and support more competitive pump prices across Nigeria.”

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria welcomed the expansion. Its National Publicity Secretary, Chinedu Ukadike, said the initiative addresses a persistent problem in which marketers pay for products but sometimes wait days or weeks before loading and delivery.

“This gesture, if sustained, will be able to alleviate the sufferings of independent marketers,” Ukadike said. “There has been the issue of financial hold-up, whereby marketers pay for products and are not loaded for days and weeks, and they suffer unnecessary hardship bringing the product down.”

He added that faster delivery shortens the period marketers’ funds remain tied up, improves cash flow and allows businesses to deploy capital more efficiently.

The refinery said the savings are especially significant for marketers supplying areas far from the plant, where haulage, vehicle operations, driver costs, insurance and road risks add to expenses. Lowering those costs could improve the economics of serving distant markets and give marketers more room to compete on retail prices.

The expansion comes as Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector adjusts to higher domestic refining capacity and a more competitive market. The Dangote refinery, with a capacity of 700,000 barrels per day, has been supplying refined products to the domestic market while also expanding its presence in international markets.