New Telegraph 
Bayo Ojulari, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has assured Nigerians that the ongoing price competition in the downstream petroleum sector will ultimately benefit consumers.
Ojulari, who spoke on Sunday against the backdrop of an intense price war that has seen petrol prices crash from over N1,200 per litre in November 2024 to as low as N739 per litre at some retail outlets in December 2025, described the current market tensions as a natural consequence of Nigeria’s transition from total import dependence to domestic refining.
He said, “Where there is healthy competition, the buyers are the ultimate beneficiaries. And I think for us, we need to keep our minds that the market will stabilise.
“After a while, there’ll be some tension, because we’re going through a major transition,” Ojulari told journalists after briefing President Bola Tinubu in Lagos.
“At the end of the day, I can tell you that Nigerians on the street are going to be the beneficiaries.”
Clarifying NNPCL’s role in the deregulated market, Ojulari emphasised that the company is no longer responsible for petroleum product pricing or regulation under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
“The first thing you have to know is that the PIA did something fundamental. Before the PIA in 2021, which rolled in 2022, everything was under NNPC, including some regulations. The PIA divided the roles of regulation from what I will call the business,” he explained.
“The NMDPRA is responsible for all downstream regulation and midstream, as you know, and the NUPRC is responsible for all upstream regulations.
“So it’s very important that Nigerians understand that post-PIA, we as NNPC are not regulators,” he added, stressing that NNPC has been instituted by the PIA to become “A commercial company, which means a company that needs to compete profitably and be successful profitably.”
Ojulari further disclosed that NNPCL no longer receives federation allocations and must raise finance independently “like any other business.”
Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector has been gripped by fierce competition since September 2024, when Dangote Refinery, Africa’s largest single-train refinery with 650,000 barrels per day capacity, began producing petrol locally.
