By Ajibola Olarinoye
Nigeria’s crude oil import game has seriously leveled up— a jump of over 26% in the first half of 2025. That’s 5.6 million metric tons, up from 4.4 million last year. Wild, right? And yeah, you can pretty much thank the Dangote Refinery for that. This beast of a plant (650,000 barrels a day, no joke) has been pulling in crude from everywhere: the US, Brazil, Angola, Equatorial Guinea… you name it.
It’s not just a straight line up. In the first quarter of 2025, imports actually dipped by 30% compared to Q1 2024. Dropped down to 2.4 million metric tons. Guess the numbers needed a little breather. Then, boom—in Q2, things went totally bonkers: imports shot up to 3.2 million metric tons, which is more than double what it was in Q2 2024. Talk about a comeback.
The refinery itself only kicked off in late May 2023 and didn’t even start pumping out diesel and jet fuel till January 2024, after their first crude shipment landed in December. Since then, it’s been a revolving door of oil tankers—crude coming in, finished products heading out to the global market.
And about exports: Nigeria shipped out just under a million metric tons of petrol (PMS) in the first half of 2025. That’s actually down about 7% from the same period last year. So, yeah, imports are up, exports are a bit down. Guess you can’t have it all.
