Nigerian market participants are seeking access to government gasoline data as importers look for demand signals in the post-subsidy era and face growing competition from the privately owned 650,000 b/d Dangote refinery.
Concerns over the lack of official consumption data were a key theme at the OTL downstream conference in Lagos this week. The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) suspended daily reporting of delivered gasoline volumes in August 2023, leaving market participants without regular updates.
The issue has gained urgency amid mounting pressure on gasoline availability from Dangote — according to state-owned NNPC — and tighter access to import permits since the refinery began gasoline production in September last year.
"We're finding it difficult to lift PMS [gasoline] from Dangote," Huub Stokman, chief executive of NNPC's retail arm, told the OTL conference. He noted that this was not the case for other products such as gasoil or kerosine.
An NNPC source told Argus that Dangote may be prioritising gasoline exports to meet significant hard currency needs this quarter. A Dangote source said the refinery also exported low-sulphur straight-run fuel oil in the third quarter to generate foreign exchange.
Truck loading delays from Dangote have worsened in the past two weeks, two other sources said. Authorisation from Dangote for paid buyers to load trucks at the refinery's gantry has been delayed by up to eight days, complicating price risk management at a time when gasoline values have moved strongly into backwardation.
Volumes of overland truck deliveries and cargoes from the refinery to Nigerian ports have become a focal point for market participants assessing Dangote's ability to meet domestic demand. Deliveries to ports have averaged 65,000 b/d this year, according to Kpler, but truck volumes remain unclear. One trade association attempted to quantify them by placing enumerators on roads leading from the refinery, sources said.
Dangote's own estimates put domestic gasoline demand at 40mn litres/d (252,000 b/d) last month, up from 33mn l/d (207,900 b/d) in September. But some sources question both the demand figures and the refinery's ability to meet them, suggesting Dangote's public insistence that it can supply the market is discouraging NMDPRA from issuing additional import permits.
Market participants say problems with Dangote's main gasoline production unit, the RFCC, have left the refinery short of volumes for the domestic market despite public claims to the contrary. The unit restarted in early October after a shutdown of more than four weeks, but gasoline output has ramped up slowly, sources said. The refinery is also prioritising loadings for compressed natural gas (CNG) trucks used in its distribution programme and for clearing a backlog of orders built up during the RFCC downtime and labour-related disruptions in September.
In response to market concerns, a Dangote spokesperson told Argus the refinery is currently producing 40mn l/d of gasoline — a figure that is verifiable by visiting the site — and that product availability remains strong. The spokesperson said Nigeria's downstream regulator has "serious gaps in its capacity that require fixing", and accused certain market participants of circulating "fake numbers" on gasoline demand, supply and product quality.
NMDPRA data on truckout volumes from the refinery and coastal terminals would help resolve market uncertainty, but the regulator now distributes its daily reports only internally, several sources said. NMDPRA executive director of economic regulations and strategic planning Zainab Gobir said the authority suspended publication to audit the data following its creation through a merger of three defunct agencies. The merger led to NMDPRA's founding in August 2021 — two years before the suspension.
Argus obtained NMDPRA data presented to the national legislature showing domestic gasoline supply from Dangote fell from 21mn l/d (132,300 b/d) in August to 16mn l/d (100,800 b/d) in September. Supply recovered to 19mn l/d (119,700 b/d) in the first 10 days of October after the RFCC restart, but remained below its January peak of 23mn l/d (144,900 b/d).
Gobir told the OTL audience she welcomed requests for "non-sensitive data" from the regulator. Argus formally requested daily truckout data but received no reply.
