Nigeria’s petrol import bill falls 29% to $10 billion – CBN

Nigeria spent $10 billion on petrol imports in 2025, a 28.88 per cent drop from the $14.06 billion recorded the previous year, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s 2025 balance of payments report — a decline the bank attributes largely to the start of domestic fuel production at the Dangote refinery.

Aliko Dangote officially announced the commencement of petrol production at his 650,000 barrel-per-day facility on 3rd September 2025. The CBN said the increased availability of locally refined fuel contributed directly to the fall in imports, with the refinery also exporting $5.85 billion worth of refined petroleum products during the year.

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A shifting trade picture
The refinery’s emergence as an export player helped sustain the goods account surplus despite headwinds elsewhere. The goods account — the main subset of the current account — recorded a surplus of $14.51 billion in 2025, up from $13.17 billion in 2024. The CBN said the improvement was driven by the rise in gas exports, which grew 21.36 per cent from $8.66 billion to $10.51 billion, and by Dangote’s refined product exports.

Crude oil earnings, however, told a different story, falling 14.41 per cent from $36.85 billion in 2024 to $31.54 billion in 2025. Non-oil exports offered a partial offset, growing 24.80 per cent to $9.31 billion.

Overall balance of payments
Nigeria’s current account surplus narrowed to $14.04 billion in 2025, from $19.03 billion the previous year, though it remained well above the $6.42 billion recorded in 2023. The CBN said the decline was driven by lower crude earnings, $3.74 billion in crude oil imports by the Dangote refinery, rising non-oil imports — which grew 13.6 per cent to $29.24 billion — and a 60.88 per cent surge in net outflows in the primary income account, from $5.65 billion to $9.09 billion.

Nigeria’s overall balance of payments closed the year with a surplus of $4.23 billion, down from $6.83 billion in 2024. External reserves stood at $45.75 billion at the end of December, a 13.83 per cent increase from the close of the previous year.