Dangote Refinery Exports to US while Depots Lower Petrol Prices

Direct supply and cheaper logistics are reshaping Nigeria’s fuel market and sending cargoes abroad. Dangote’s Lekki refinery has just moved a gasoline cargo destined for the United States. 

Trade and vessel-tracking data show the tanker Gemini Pearl loaded roughly 300,000 barrels from the Lekki facility in late August and steamed toward the US Atlantic coast, a clear sign that Nigeria’s largest private refinery is now placing product into trans-Atlantic markets.

At home, depot owners and marketers have cut ex-depot and pump prices as competition tightens. A recent market survey reported several depots including the Dangote terminal and other major players offering Premium Motor Spirit at about ₦821 per litre, while some depots posted slightly higher ex-depot rates. 

At retail, some stations are already selling below previous levels (for example Ardova at about ₦845 per litre), even as a number of larger outlets remain around the mid-₦800s. 

That downward pressure on prices is not accidental. Dangote has been rolling out a plan to bypass traditional middlemen and sell directly to petrol stations, manufacturers, telecoms firms, aviation companies and other big buyers and to include logistics in the offer. 

The group says it has committed roughly ₦720 billion to buy 4,000 CNG-powered distribution trucks; about 1,000 of those vehicles have arrived so far, and the company intends to begin deliveries in Lagos and the South-West before expanding nationwide by the end of September.

The refinery’s push isn’t only about domestic market share. Dangote has already dispatched large shipments to the Middle East and Singapore this year, and the US cargo follows that pattern. 

Tight fuel inventories on the US Atlantic coast and rising RBOB gasoline prices opened an arbitrage window that made Nigerian product attractive to overseas buyers demonstrating that Dangote can now act as a swing supplier in global fuel flows. 

The market has reacted quickly: state-linked and private marketers adjusted pump prices in response. 

NNPC retail outlets, after briefly raising their rates, reduced them again with Lagos pumps observed selling at about ₦865 per litre and other filling stations moved their prices down to protect market share as Dangote and the depots compete on both price and delivery terms.