Fuel prices to reduce drastically soon – IPMAN

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has said fuel price may drastically reduce in earnest.

This they said is as a result of the continuing sales of crude and refined products in naira as initiated by Federal Government.

They also disclosed that Dangote Refinery, is anticipated to lower its petrol loading costs by the end of this week, which will further contribute to the reduction of the prices.

The National Publicity Secretary of the Association, Chinedu Ukadike, revealed this while lending his voice to the Federal Executive Council’s directive regarding the naira-for-crude agreement, announced on Wednesday.

National Beam gathered that on Wednesday, the Federal Executive Council, FEC, after an initial delay, directed the full implementation of the suspended Naira-for-Crude agreement with local refiners.

It said the initiative with local refineries is not a temporary measure but a “key policy directive designed to support sustainable local refining.”

This was disclosed by the Ministry of Finance in a statement published on its official X handle titled, “Update on the Crude and Refined Product Sales in Naira Initiative.” The statement was released following a meeting on Tuesday between the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, and representatives from Dangote Refinery, a major beneficiary of the agreement, to review progress and address ongoing implementation matters.

It would be recalled that the FEC in July 2024 directed the national oil company to sell crude oil to Dangote Refinery in naira and not in United States’ greenback for an initial phase of six months, which FEC said is part of their move to reduce the strain on the US dollar and guarantee price stability of petroleum products.

The sale of crude oil and refined petroleum products in naira to local refineries commenced on October 1, 2024 to improve supply, save the country millions of dollars in petroleum products imports, and ultimately reduce pump prices.

However, in March 2025, Dangote refinery said it had temporarily halted the sale of petroleum products in naira. The refinery said the decision to halt sales in naira was “necessary to avoid a mismatch between our sales proceeds and our crude oil purchase obligations, which are currently denominated in U.S. dollars”.

Immediately after the announcement, private depot owners effected an increase in loading cost and effectively raised pump price from around N860 to about N960 per litre, making consumers pay at least N70 more than what it used to cost them to buy a litre of the premium commodity days earlier.

But in this fresh update on Wednesday, the committee said the policy is not temporary but a long-term plan to cut Nigeria’s dependence on foreign exchange for petroleum.