Home gas provide drags petrol imports to eight-year low

The importation of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) into Nigeria is on monitor to hit its lowest quantity in eight years.

This important shift is pushed by the operations of the 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote Petroleum Refinery, the nation’s not too long ago established mega-refinery, which is lowering the necessity for imports and bolstering Nigeria’s gas sufficiency.

A report by Bloomberg on Wednesday, citing information from analytics agency Vortexa Ltd, revealed that petrol imports from international suppliers are considerably reducing, boosting gas self-sufficiency and marking a key step towards larger vitality independence.

An evaluation revealed that the best month-to-month import quantity occurred in November 2022, with over 420,000 barrels imported. In 2024, the nation recorded its highest import in Might, with 300,000 barrels.

The report additionally said that shipments into the nation between January 1-24, 2025, stood at about 110,000 barrels a day, representing an import of 17.49 million litres.

If that fee continues for the remainder of the month, the nation’s imports — most of which come from Europe — will hit their lowest since 2017.

Different sources are from the Center East, Russia, Asia, and North America.

Reacting, Vortexa analyst Samantha Hartke said that the event has pressured oil merchants in Northwest Europe to search out different locations for its gasoline provides.

She stated, “A big a part of the slowdown in Nigeria’s gasoline imports is because of the ramp-up of the Dangote refinery. Northwest Europe should discover different houses for its gasoline provides.”

It additionally said that stockpiles of gasoline held in unbiased storage in Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp — a key exporting hub for barrels to Nigeria — have in the meantime hit a file excessive, based on figures from Insights World.

Dangote is greater than some other refinery in Europe or Africa and has been touted as a manner for Nigeria — lengthy reliant on imports of gasoline — to change into much less depending on international provides.

Nevertheless, the refinery has confronted its fair proportion of challenges, ranging from the efforts to supply crude oil, which have been difficult by low native crude provide from the Nigerian Nationwide Petroleum Firm Restricted affecting its efforts to ramp up every day manufacturing.

The PidomNigeria experiences that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery is importing extra crude oil as provide from the NNPC turns into inadequate for gas manufacturing on the $20bn Lekki-based facility.

The NNPC is reportedly struggling to provide 350,000bpd to the Dangote refinery from the 450,000bpd crude meant for Nigeria’s native consumption.

With its present manufacturing capability of 500,000bpd, officers stated there’s a must look past the shores of Nigeria for the feedstock.

It was stated that the feedstock wanted by the refinery every day can’t be solely provided by the state-owned oil firm, NNPC.

“About 12 million barrels of crude have departed the US and may arrive in Nigeria by February,” the Africa Report reported on Monday.

Recall that in July, President Tinubu ordered the NNPC to promote crude oil to native refineries in naira.

In October, the committee supervising the naira-for-crude deal commenced the sale of crude to solely the Dangote refinery in naira, saying it will promote to solely petrol-producing refineries.

Nevertheless, with the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries approaching stream, extra refineries can be thought of for the naira-for-crude association.

In accordance with the crude oil manufacturing forecast of manufacturing oil firms and the refining requirement of useful refineries in Nigeria signed by the Chief Govt of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Fee, Gbenga Komolafe, the Dangote refinery would require 550,000 barrels of a mix of Nigerian crude oil every day, 17.05 million barrels month-to-month, and 99.55 million barrels between January and June 2025.

The Dangote refinery is already constructing eight extra tanks to retailer imported crude. The ability is planning to stockpile imported crude oil as native provides change into unreliable.