Nigeria petrol imports triple as FX crunch diverts Dangote output
Nigeria’s petrol imports surged in June after the Dangote Refinery diverted production to export markets to secure scarce foreign currency, exposing the failure of a government policy aimed at ending the country's reliance on imported fuel.
Nigerian petrol imports more than tripled to 18.1 million litres per day in June, up from 5.6 million litres in May, according to the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority. The surge offset a 21.7 percent collapse in domestic supply, which fell to 32.5 million litres per day from 41.5 million litres. Overall national petrol receipts rose seven percent to 50.6 million litres daily, driven almost entirely by imported volumes.
The sudden reversal stems from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, a 650,000-barrel-per-day facility that supplied roughly 90 percent of Nigeria’s petrol demand just a month earlier. The plant has scaled back local sales to prioritize exports, a move designed to generate the US dollars required to purchase crude feedstock. The shift highlights a severe liquidity constraint that is undermining Nigeria’s energy security.
Central to the problem is the breakdown of the naira-for-crude programme launched in 2024. The policy was intended to allow local refiners to buy crude in local currency, thereby easing pressure on Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves and ending decades of fuel import dependency. However, Dangote is receiving very little crude through this mechanism.
“We are exporting as much as possible,” said Devakumar Edwin, vice president of Dangote Industries Limited. “We are not able to get enough dollars from the Central Bank, and it doesn’t make any sense to be selling the products in naira and not being able to buy dollars. We need the dollars to buy our feedstock.”
For investors and market participants, the data signals a structural flaw in Nigeria’s economic strategy. The failure to supply adequate foreign exchange or domestic crude to its largest refinery forces the plant to operate as an export-oriented business rather than a tool for import substitution. This dynamic prevents the country from realizing the foreign exchange savings that the refinery’s commissioning was supposed to deliver.
Analysts warn that without a resolution, the country risks sliding back into its historical pattern of exporting raw crude while importing refined fuel. “The NNPC’s failure to supply sufficient crude to Dangote may compel the refinery to import crude and sell refined products abroad, leaving the domestic market underserved and creating incentives for imports,” said Ikemesit Effiong, head of research at SBM Intelligence.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Central Bank of Nigeria did not comment on the refinery’s complaints. Until state-backed entities can reliably provide either dollars or crude, Dangote will remain caught between supporting domestic energy needs and securing its own supply chain.
