The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has filed a fresh suit against Nigeria’s Attorney General, seeking to overturn fuel import licences recently granted to marketers and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. The legal action follows the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority’s decision to issue six licences for petrol importation, citing the need to complement domestic supply.Court documents obtained by Reuters show that the refinery is asking the Federal High Court in Lagos to nullify the import permits granted to NNPC and several fuel traders.
This marks a renewed legal challenge after Dangote withdrew a similar case in 2025 following Federal Government intervention.President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has repeatedly maintained that petrol importation should no longer be necessary, insisting his refinery has sufficient storage and production capacity to meet local demand. In the new filing, the refinery is asking the court to set aside the permits issued or renewed by the NMDPRA, arguing that they violate an earlier court order to preserve the status quo.
Regulators and fuel marketers, however, have consistently defended the import licences, arguing that imports remain necessary to guarantee adequate supply and prevent fuel shortages. The NMDPRA recently approved licences for six marketers to import a combined 720,000 metric tonnes of Premium Motor Spirit. The affected companies are NIPCO, AA Rano, Matrix, Shafa, Pinnacle and Bono.
Breakdown of the allocation shows that NIPCO is to import 120,000 metric tonnes, AA Rano 150,000MT, Matrix 150,000MT, Shafa 120,000MT, Pinnacle 120,000MT and Bono 60,000MT. An NMDPRA official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorised to comment publicly, confirmed that the licences had been issued. Dangote, however, argued in its filing that the permits threaten its operations and breach legal provisions which, according to the company, only permit fuel imports when domestic refining capacity falls short.
The dispute comes despite NMDPRA’s recent claim that the Dangote refinery now supplies more than 90 per cent of Nigeria’s daily petrol needs.Speaking recently during an interview with Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund CEO, Nicolai Tangen, Aliko Dangote disclosed that the refinery is currently processing 661,000 barrels of crude per day. He said the refinery has proven its operational capacity by exceeding its designed output level of 650,000 barrels per day.According to him, this performance has strengthened investor confidence in the project and positioned the group for stronger financial backing when required.
Dangote further revealed that the refinery sources about 56 per cent of its crude supply locally, while the remainder comes from countries including Angola, Libya and the United States. He added that the company currently purchases about 21 crude cargoes monthly to sustain operations. The billionaire industrialist also disclosed plans to more than double the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day within the next 30 months.
He blamed what he described as entrenched interests benefiting from the former fuel subsidy regime for attempts to frustrate the refinery’s operations. According to him, traders, shippers and local beneficiaries of past subsidy allocations are among those resisting the refinery’s emergence because it threatens their long-standing financial interests. The case is expected to test the balance between local refining ambitions and Nigeria’s broader fuel supply strategy.
Source: https://punchng.com/
