Petrol import habit returns despite Dangote’s growing output

Nigeria’s dependence on imported petrol has rebounded, reversing months of optimism that the start of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery would sharply reduce fuel imports and ease demand for dollars.

Nigeria spent much of 2024 and 2025 selling the story of energy independence to investors, pointing to the 650,000-barrel-a-day Dangote plant as the mechanism that would finally choke off the stream of foreign exchange burned via importing fuel the country is supposed to produce itself, given its status as Africa’s largest crude producer.

That conversation is fading as data sourced from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) showed the average daily imports of petrol, known locally as PMS, jumped to 18.1 million litres in June from 5.9 million litres in May, the sharpest monthly increase in import volumes since the start of 2026.

The rebound in imports comes even as the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, the 650,000-barrel-a-day complex on the outskirts of Lagos that was supposed to end Nigeria’s decades-long reliance on imported fuel, continues to ramp up output.

That contradiction, rising local refining capacity alongside a swelling import bill, is what has traders and economists watching the naira most closely, since every dollar spent importing fuel is a dollar pulled out of a foreign exchange market that has only recently found a measure of calm.

“Last year, everyone was told to plan around Dangote volumes. Now marketers are back on the phone with traders in Rotterdam and Antwerp,” said one Lagos-based independent fuel marketer, who imports PMS cargoes and asked not to be named because he still deals with the regulator daily.

He added, “We are back to bringing in cargoes because the domestic allocations have not been steady enough to plan around.”

Oyewole Akanni, zonal chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Western Zone, said uncertainty over petrol prices has forced many marketers to halt fresh purchases, leading to the temporary closure of some filling stations.

“Only a few marketers are buying products for now because of the uncertainty,” Akanni said.

BusinessDay’s findings showed daily domestic PMS supply, the bulk of it now flowing from the Dangote refinery in Lekki, dropped to 32.5 million litres in June from 41.5 million litres in May, a decline of 21.7 percent.

The combination pushed total daily receipts, imported and local combined, to 50.6 million litres, up 6.8% from 47.4 million litres the month before.

“Total PMS receipts rose by seven per cent from 47.4 million litres per day in May to 50.6 million litres in June, driven by a 207 per cent surge in imports to 18.1 million litres, even as domestic supply fell by 22 per cent to 32.5 million litres per day,” the NMDPRA said in the report.

“Domestic daily receipts include DPRP gantry and all coastal evacuation receipts. Consumption data is based on volumes trucked out from all facilities into the domestic market.”

Nigeria began the year in a far stronger position: in January, domestic supply of 40.1 million litres per day covered roughly 61.8 percent of total petrol receipts, with imports averaging just 24.8 million litres per day.

Imports then collapsed to 3.0 million litres per day in February, a sign, analysts said at the time, that Dangote’s refinery had begun displacing seaborne cargoes in earnest.

Import volumes ticked up modestly to 5.9 million litres per day in March and stayed subdued through the spring before June’s sharp reversal.

June’s domestic supply of 32.5 million litres per day was 7.6 million litres, or 19 percent, below the 40.1 million litres recorded at the start of the year, even though the Dangote refinery has continued to add processing capacity and has repeatedly touted rising output in public statements.

Dangote’s own number

According to NMDPRA, Dangote plant ran at an average capacity utilisation of 101.36 percent for the month, meaning it was, on paper, producing more petrol than its nameplate capacity implies.

Average PMS production came in at 39.1 million litres per day, comfortably above the 32.5 million litres per day that NMDPRA recorded as domestic receipts for the same month.

That six-million-litre-plus gap between what the refinery said it made and what actually reached the domestic market is the detail that complicates the simplest reading of June’s import surge.

Part of the answer sits in Dangote’s export and inventory figures. The refinery shipped an average of 3.4 million litres per day of PMS abroad in June, and closed the month holding 410.7 million litres of petrol in stock, a sizable inventory cushion relative to daily output

A legal fight over who gets to import

The volume swings come against the backdrop of a renewed courtroom battle over who should be allowed to bring fuel into the country at all.

BusinessDay on May 15 reported that Dangote Petroleum Refinery filed a fresh lawsuit against Nigeria’s attorney general, seeking to void import licences the NMDPRA granted to marketers and to state oil firm NNPC, according to court filings reviewed by Reuters.

The move revives a dispute that appeared to have cooled roughly a year ago, when Dangote dropped an earlier suit targeting similar permits without offering a public explanation. That earlier case had also sought to cancel import approvals held by NNPC and a group of trading firms.

In the new filing, Dangote is asking the Federal High Court in Lagos to strike down licences the NMDPRA issued or renewed this month, arguing they violate a prior court order to preserve the status quo.