As Dangote Refinery’s sustained efforts to boost Nigeria’s locally refined petroleum products continue to yield the desired results, the nation’s petrol imports significantly dropped in the first quarter of 2026, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has reported.
According to NMDPRA’s report on the nation’s midstream and downstream subsectors performance submitted to the Federation Revenue Reconciliation Committee, the petrol imports fell to 965.52 million litres in Q1 2026 from an estimated 2.43 billion litres in Q1 2025, representing a 60.2% year-on-year decline.
Also, the report reflected that local refinery supply to the domestic market rose from 1.996 billion litres in Q1 2025 to 3.179 billion litres in the quarter under review, implying an increase of 59.2% year-on-year (y-o-y).
The data showed that domestic refineries accounted for about 76.7% of the total petrol supply in Q1 2026, up from 45.2% in Q1 2025 based on the downstream sector fact sheet by the regulatory authority.
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A further analysis of the NMDPRA’s report revealed that in the quarter under review, petrol supply to the local market slightly dropped to 4.14 billion litres, from 4.42 billion litres in Q1 2025, suggesting that transporters and other consumers’ demand for fuel dropped possibly due to hike in pump prices of the commodity.
The 2025 figures contained in the fact sheet, in which the average daily supply volumes were measured in million litres per day indicated that in January 2025 domestic refinery contributed 19.1 million litres per day or approximately 592.1 million litres in the month, while imports contributed about 765.7 million litres during the month.
A further analysis of the fact sheet showed that February 2026 recorded the biggest drop in petrol imports., with the volume dipping to 85.1 million litres from about 770 million litres in in the corresponding month of last year, representing an 88.9% (y-o-y) decline.
In February this year, local refinery supply increased to 824.45 million litres from 694.4 million litres in February 2025, accounting for over 90% of the total PMS volume in February this year.
On importation, in March this year, PMS imports marginally rose to 182.24 million litres but was lower than the 889.7 million litres estimated for March 2025 while the local refineries’ supply increased to 1.11 billion litres in March this year, from 709.9 million litres in March last year.
