The federal government of Nigeria has said that Dangote Refinery is now authorised to serve as the only provider of jet fuel, or Jet A1, to aircraft companies operating in the country.

Festus Keyamo, the minister of aviation,disclosed this during an interviewon Channels TV on Tuesday.

Keyamo said the airline operators consented to let the 650,000 bpd refinery serve as their sole supplier of jet fuel, with his approval and cooperation.

“The airline operators just met recently. With my blessing, it’s a decision from the airline operators in Nigeria that they should only buy from Dangote refinery Jet A1.

“You can see that yesterday we started a naira-for-crude purchase with Dangote. It’s all Naira, no Dollar component,” Keyamo said.

He explained that the timing is good as Dangote and the federal government recently put the naira-for-crude agreement into effect.

Keyamo stressed that this arrangement would lessen the strain on foreign currency.

“The price will no longer be subjected to the varying factors of the international market, nor the headwinds of oil price in the international market. It will be in local currency so we can be clear as to the cost of it. We will buy in naira. I’m sure we are going to have access to cheaper Jet A1 fuel,” Keyamo said. (BusinessDay: Text, Excluding Headline)