The petrol imports bill of Nigeria in the first quarter of 2025, significantly declined to N1.76 trillion ($1.2 billion) from N3.81 trillion ($2.6 billion) recorded in the first quarter of 2024, according to the latest foreign trade statistics report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The report which was seen by New Telegraph on Thursday showed that the decline is a 54% year-on-year fall.
It further showed that the fall is a 47% reduction from Q4 2024, when the country spent N3.3 trillion on petrol imports.
This marks the lowest quarterly import bill since 2020 and reflects the growing impact of the 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote Refinery, which started full-scale production in late 2024 and reduced Nigeria’s dependence on foreign fuel imports.
A five-year review of first-quarter petrol import figures revealed that Nigeria’s petrol imports had been steadily rising until 2024.
Data showed that Nigeria imported N732 billion worth of petrol in Q1 2020, N1.29 trillion in Q1 2021, and N2.69 trillion in Q1 2022. Further analysis revealed that the petrol import bills reduced to N2.03 trillion in Q1 2023 and later ballooned to an all-time high of N3.81 trillion in Q1 2024.
Nigeria’s petrol import value has now returned to pre-2022 levels, with the Q1 2025 import bill falling to N1.76 trillion.
This indicated that domestic refining was beginning to displace foreign supply significantly.
According to the NBS report, petrol was Nigeria’s most imported product from ECOWAS countries in the first quarter of 2025. It stated that the country got N89.18 billion or 44.51% of total imports from the subregion.
The report highlighted that in the broader West African region, petrol imports accounted for 41.86% of Nigeria’s trade inflow, while it contributed 11.63% of total imports from the entire Africa.
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