The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria has urged feuding oil sector groups to abandon media battles and embrace direct negotiations with Dangote Petroleum Refinery to resolve escalating industry disputes.
IPMAN National President Abubakar Shettima yesterday called on the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria and the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers to pursue constructive dialogue rather than public confrontation with Africa’s largest refinery.
“My advice to DAPPMAN and NUPENG is they should go to the negotiation table, sit and discuss, because all this going through the media and going to the government cannot help them,” Shettima told our correspondent in Abuja.
The IPMAN leader warned that continued disputes could destabilise the downstream petroleum sector as the industry adapts to the operational reality of the $20 billion Dangote refinery.
“Changes have already come to the industry and to the country, and whenever there are changes, the only thing we can do as business people is to go and sit down at the negotiation table, not go on strike,” he said.
Shettima emphasised that deregulation had fundamentally altered market dynamics, eliminating regulatory barriers to competitive pricing strategies.
“The sector is already fully deregulated. So, you cannot tell an individual that he cannot do this or he cannot do that. He is the owner of his own money,” the petroleum marketer stated.
Recent weeks have witnessed mounting tensions between Dangote Refinery and established industry players over pricing and operational practices.
DAPPMAN accused the Lagos-based facility of market distortion through alleged price undercutting after Dangote reduced petrol prices from N865 per litre to N841 in the South-West and N851 in Abuja, Edo, Rivers, Kwara and Delta states.
The depot owners claimed Dangote was deliberately undermining importers whose petroleum cargoes were arriving on Nigerian shores, alleging the refinery offered better prices to international traders in Lome than local off-takers.
NUPENG escalated the conflict on 8th September by shutting down fuel depots and the Dangote facility itself, protesting the refinery’s alleged ban on drivers of its 4,000 compressed natural gas trucks from joining the union.
The labour union has threatened to withdraw services unless what it termed “anti-labour practices” are addressed.
Billionaire businessman Femi Otedola, who founded DAPPMAN in 2002, this week told depot owners to “embrace change or perish” as the industry transforms.
Otedola argued that Nigeria’s over four million metric tonnes of storage capacity had become largely redundant with domestic refining capabilities now operational.
“With the Dangote refinery now supplying fuel locally, the old business model is crumbling,” Otedola declared, urging former colleagues to recognise new market realities.
The entrepreneur highlighted additional benefits including reduced port congestion around Ibafon, Tincan and Apapa areas due to decreased petroleum imports.
Dangote Group Chairman Aliko Dangote has vowed not to allow his investment to be undermined by what he described as “oil mafias” seeking to preserve outdated business models.
The Lekki Free Zone facility, which began production in 2024, processes 650,000 barrels daily and represents Nigeria’s most significant step towards petroleum self-sufficiency after decades of import dependency.
Industry analysts warn that unresolved stakeholder disputes could undermine projected benefits of domestic refining including price stability and supply security.
The Dangote refinery’s operational success is viewed as crucial to ending Nigeria’s paradox of crude oil exports alongside refined product imports worth billions of dollars annually.
