Nigeria’s spending on the importation of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, plunged by over 96 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, marking a dramatic shift in the country’s fuel supply landscape and signaling the growing impact of local refining capacity.
Latest foreign trade statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday showed that only N87.401bn was spent on the importation of Motor Spirit Ordinary, the official trade classification for petrol, between January and March 2026. The figure represents a sharp decline of N2.184tn, or 96.15 per cent, compared to the N2.271tn spent on petrol imports during the corresponding period of 2025.
The development is particularly significant as petrol, which had consistently ranked among Nigeria’s most imported commodities for years, was completely absent from the list of the country’s top traded products in the first quarter of 2026. An analysis of the NBS data by our correspondent showed that petrol did not feature among the top 19 traded products with the rest of the world, Africa, or West Africa during the review period.
Instead, the leading traded products included crude petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals, gas oil, durum wheat, machines for reception, conversion and transmission of data, used vehicles, motorcycles, agricultural seeders, medicaments, aircraft parts, butanes, petroleum bitumen, sugar cane, herbicides and fuel additives.
The report read, “The value of total imports stood at N13,619.33bn in the first quarter of 2026, representing a 18.17 per cent decrease from the value recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2025 (N16,644.42bn) and a 21.05 per cent decrease compared to the value recorded in Q4 2025 (N17,250.93bn).
“Analysis of Nigeria’s import trade reveals that China remained the leading source of imports in the first quarter of 2026, followed by the United States of America, India, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates. The most imported commodities during the quarter were petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals (crude), gas oil, durum wheat, machines for the reception, conversion, and transmission of voice, images, or data, and used vehicles with diesel or semi-diesel engines.
“The value of other oil products imported in Q1 2026 stood at N748.10bn, reflecting an 85.05 per cent decrease from N5,005.22bn in Q1 2025 and an 81.38 per cent decrease from N4,018.31bn recorded in Q4 2025.” The latest import figure is also the lowest quarterly amount spent on petrol imports since at least 2022, according to available trade records reviewed by our correspondent.
Data from previous years showed that Nigeria spent N2.694tn on petrol imports in the first quarter of 2022. The import bill declined by N661bn, or 24.5 per cent, to N2.033tn in the corresponding period of 2023. However, petrol import spending surged by N1.780tn in 2024 to N3.813tn, representing an increase of 87.6 per cent year-on-year.
The figure later dropped by N1.542tn, or 40.4 per cent, to N2.271tn in the first quarter of 2025 before plunging by a massive N2.184tn, or 96.15 per cent, to N87.401bn in the first quarter of 2026. The latest figure means that for every N100 spent on petrol imports in the first quarter of 2025, only about N4 was spent during the same period in 2026.
The NBS data also highlighted the changing structure of Nigeria’s petrol import trade profile over the years. According to the report, the total trade value involving the petroleum product stood at N7.705tn in 2022. This declined marginally by N194bn, or 2.5 per cent, to N7.511tn in 2023.