Oil marketers have announced that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has initiated the refund process for the N15 billion owed to its members.
This development comes as the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria previously reported that its members had made these payments to NNPC for petrol supply, according to Arise News.
Despite the payments made months ago, IPMAN members stated they had neither received the promised supplies nor reimbursement.
Instead, the NNPC was allegedly requesting that marketers supplement the initial payments.
The head of the group, Maigandi Shettima,
had lamented during a television interview stating “It is unacceptable for the NNPC to ask us to add more money after withholding our payments for months without supplying the product.
“Roughly, the amount we have paid is almost N15 billion. Our money has been with the NNPC for nearly three months, and they have yet to provide the product we paid for. Now, they are asking us to pay the difference.”
However, in an interview on Sunday, the spokesman for IPMAN, Chief Chinedu Ukadike, confirmed the NNPC has begun refunding the N15 billion owed to its members.
This development follows a peace agreement brokered by the Department of State Services.
“We went to a meeting with the Director of the DSS who intervened in our matter,” Ukadike stated.
According to him, a recent meeting resulted in key agreements from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
The regulator has decided to issue licenses allowing marketers to directly off-take petrol from Dangote.
Ukadike noted that the refunds are being processed directly into the marketers’ wallets with the NNPC, marking a significant step toward resolving ongoing tensions between the two parties. This initiative aims to address the financial disputes that have affected the operations of oil marketers in the country.
Additionally, with Nigeria’s shift to a deregulated downstream market, oil marketers are now permitted to import petrol, provided they meet the necessary capacity requirements.
These measures are aimed at enhancing the operational framework for marketers in the industry.
In addition to the previous agreements, Chief Chinedu Ukadike announced that the NMDPRA has agreed to pay independent marketers N10 billion owed to them from the petrol bridging debt under the Petroleum Equalisation Fund.
“NMDPRA has graciously approved the sum of N10 billion for IPMAN’s outstanding payments in PEF. NNPC has also agreed to reduce the rate it sells to us from N1,040 per litre to about N1,000. They have also agreed to return our outstanding money we paid to them through their portal so that marketers can make it up.
“These are the things that we agreed on and we are awaiting implementation. But as I am talking to you now, NNPC has returned our money to individual independent marketer’s wallets,” he pointed out.
He also mentioned that while the final pricing for petrol from the new $20 billion Dangote refinery has not yet been determined, a meeting will soon be scheduled with officials from the facility to establish a pricing template and loading arrangements.
This comes amid uncertainty in the downstream oil sector, which has persisted for weeks following the federal government’s announcement that the NNPC would be the sole off-taker for petrol produced by the Dangote refinery, capable of processing 650,000 barrels per day.
