The latest adjustment marks about the 20th price review this year, reinforcing the refinery’s aggressive pricing strategy as the festive travel season intensifies across Nigeria.
According to senior officials, the refinery introduced the cut to ease transportation costs ahead of the yuletide, when millions of Nigerians travel across states to reunite with family.
The company said that the review aligns with its ‘commitment to make the season memorable for citizens and reduce cost pressures on road transport operators’.
The latest announcement comes just days after Dangote Group President, Alhaji Aliko Dangote assured that the refinery would keep fuel ‘reasonable and competitive’ despite global market volatility and ongoing smuggling along Nigeria’s borders.
After a meeting with President Bola Tinubu on 6 December, Dangote said that domestic prices remain far below the N1,500 to N1,600 per litre, common across neighbouring countries.
He argued that local pump prices must continue to fall as the refinery competes directly with imports.
‘Prices are going down because competition is working’, he said, noting that smuggling has reduced, though not completely eliminated.
Analysts say Dangote’s persistent adjustments have helped stabilise supply, curb arbitrage, and inject new efficiency into the downstream sector.
Despite investing an estimated $20 billion in the 650,000-barrel-per-day facility, Dangote reiterated that he is not in a hurry to recover capital.
The refinery began supplying diesel and aviation fuel in early 2024 and introduced petrol output in September that same year — changes that reshaped Nigeria’s fuel market and cut reliance on imports.
Industry sources say that the refinery’s repeated price revisions — and the latest decisive reduction — confirm the effective end of the marketers’ consortium structure, which previously coordinated bulk purchase arrangements. With the refinery scaling its distribution network nationwide, individual marketers now negotiate directly, enabling faster price adjustments and broader market penetration.
The refinery has positioned the latest reduction as both an economic and social intervention. With interstate travel surging ahead of Christmas and New Year, the new gantry price is expected to bring down retail pump prices in several states, especially in the North and South-East, where logistics costs typically spike during festive periods.
Officials added that more adjustments are possible as the refinery ramps up production toward its next phase of expansion.
Market trackers on petroleumprice.ng also reported fresh reductions across several private depots following the refinery’s latest review.
According to the platform, Sigmund Depot reduced its ex-depot price by N4 to N824 per litre, while Bulk Strategic also posted a marginal drop of N3. TechnoOil implemented one of the sharpest decreases with a N15 cut.
Other depots, including A.A. Rano, NIPCO and Aiteo were also captured adjusting their rates slightly as the market reacted to the new Dangote pricing template.
