Nigeria exported Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, worth N371.54bn in the second quarter of 2025, marking the first recorded shipment of the product after the Dangote Petroleum Refinery came online.
The breakthrough follows the commencement of operations at the refinery, Africa’s largest single-train refining complex.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that petrol accounted for 1.63 per cent of Nigeria’s total exports in the quarter.
This was a remarkable shift for a country long dependent on imports due to the chronic dormancy of state-owned refineries.
No petrol exports were recorded in either the previous quarter or the same period in 2024. Analysis of the trade figures revealed that only N85.83bn, representing 23.1 per cent of petrol exports, went to Africa. All of it was concentrated in West Africa, specifically within the Economic Community of West African States.
The remaining 76.9 per cent was shipped to destinations outside the continent, suggesting that markets in Asia and the Middle East drove the refinery’s early sales. Within Nigeria’s regional export mix, petrol represented 2.89 per cent of shipments to Africa, 4.36 per cent to West Africa, and 4.45 per cent to ECOWAS.
