Over 4,900 petrol stations throughout Nigeria have shut down as impartial entrepreneurs wrestle to remain afloat amid unstable petrol costs from Dangote Refinery and importers, in line with downstream sector sellers.
The closures observe persistent worth fluctuations by the $20bn Lekki-based Dangote Refinery, which has revised the price of petrol six occasions between January and April 2025, beginning at ₦950 per litre and dropping to ₦835.
This unpredictability, worsened by a scarcity of entry to {bank} loans and logistics delays, has compelled hundreds of sellers to both stop or resort to pooling funds to afford truckloads of gasoline.
President of the Petroleum Merchandise Retail Retailers Homeowners Affiliation of Nigeria (PETROAN), Billy Gillis-Harry, confirmed the large shutdown on Wednesday, Could 21.
“PETROAN has over 7,000 stores, and over 70 per cent of these shops are closed and are out of enterprise right now. And the reason being that we wrestle to take loans from the {bank}.
“You purchase merchandise from a provider after which earlier than you will get to your filling station, costs have both elevated or it has been dropped for no justifiable cause,” he stated.
Gillis-Harry added, “After which they’ve just a few filling stations that will be promoting at decrease costs, and naturally, all site visitors goes there, even when motorists have to remain within the queue for hours. So what occurs, persons are thrown out of enterprise. So what selection do we now have?”
To outlive, many entrepreneurs now go for suppliers providing “tender touchdown” offers.
“That state of affairs has compelled us to supply merchandise from those that may give us a tender touchdown, after which we will be capable of get better and compete, as a result of if somebody is aware of that there are merchandise and he’s going to purchase and do his enterprise, there isn’t any want to remain on a queue for gasoline.
“So for this reason we got here out to cry about this worth fluctuation, we will’t inform what the reason being from our refining big.
“It’s obscure, and we referred to as on the authorities to wade into it shortly as a result of we had foreseen a state of affairs the place there will not be any liquidity to inventory or restock merchandise. And that will convey shortage and a hike in worth,” he defined.
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The shutdown development extends past retailers. Over 70 tank farms, representing 65 per cent of Nigeria’s 120 accepted amenities, have additionally gone dormant within the final two years, with operators avoiding their companies in favour of direct trucking.
The disaster was triggered after the Tinubu administration eliminated petrol subsidies and totally deregulated the downstream sector in October 2024.
Since then, market competitors between Dangote Refinery and gasoline importers has intensified, with out clear regulatory intervention to stabilise costs.
Unbiased Petroleum Entrepreneurs Affiliation of Nigeria (IPMAN) spokesperson Chinedu Ukadike additionally raised alarm over mounting losses.
“The uncertainty and disparity in worth are all the time current in any liberalised market. As soon as the worth just isn’t being regulated, you’d expertise inherent fluctuations, and this makes consumers cautious of what number of litres they might be shopping for due to speculations and a worth drop,” he stated.
He continued, “We have now skilled downward evaluations in our key efficiency indicators, and due to our logistics and transportation issues, most of our vehicles spend three days on the highway earlier than they get to our vacation spot, and after they get there, costs have dropped leading to losses starting from ₦300,000 to over ₦1m relying on the amount.
“You now discover out that entrepreneurs promote at a loss, and this has remained the one cause why we don’t change costs instantly after they occur. The impact of that lower is on the entrepreneurs to bear. We don’t have buffers or an {economic} wedge to regain the loss.
“We have now been getting losses and losses throughout the interval underneath evaluate. However we’re businessmen, and we’re nonetheless on the bottom. We’d proceed to push and see how we will keep our filling station and guarantee service supply to the nation.”
Regardless of these hurdles, Ukadike stated the affiliation’s 20,000 members stay resilient, although they now function underneath strict cost-saving measures.
“We have now over 20,000 registered IPMAN entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are not taking merchandise in bulk; most of us now mix to purchase merchandise. You may have three entrepreneurs convey collectively funds to purchase merchandise.
“So as an alternative of shedding out and shutting down, entrepreneurs choose to simply mix cash to purchase a truck, and that’s the approach we’re working now. It’s skeletal due to the deficit in our {financial} worth,” he said.
The state of affairs underscores the fragility of Nigeria’s liberalised gasoline market, the place impartial operators, essential to nationwide gasoline distribution, now face extinction with out pressing intervention.
