Within the period of January 2024 and January 2026, Nigeria imported over 61.7 million barrels of crude oil from the United States, highlighting the nation’s increasing reliance on foreign feedstock to fund domestic refining while being a significant oil producer.
This is true even though Nigeria exported 55.39 million barrels of petroleum in January and February of 2026 and more than 300 million barrels in the first ten months of 2025.
Oil shipments from the US to Nigeria increased over that time, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. This was a dramatic reversal from almost ten years of minimal oil trade flows between the two nations.
American crude exports to Nigeria were essentially nonexistent prior to 2024. In March 2016, exports averaged just 19,000 barrels per day, or roughly 0.589 million barrels for the year. This was the sole significant supply documented at that time.
However, the start of operations at the Dangote refinery in 2024 marked a dramatic shift in the trade pattern. According to industry observers, this refinery has emerged as the main importer of US crude to supplement domestic supply shortages.
Since the EIA reports its statistics in thousands of barrels per day, the total monthly volume must be calculated by multiplying the daily figures by the number of days in each month.
According to data accessible for January through June of 2024, Nigeria bought 15.701 million barrels from the US in just six months. The average daily imports in January were 125,000 barrels, or 3.87 million barrels. March saw a drop to 51,000 barrels per day, or 1.58 million barrels, from 110,000 barrels per day, or 3.19 million barrels, in February.
Before falling to 35,000 barrels per day in May, or 1.08 million barrels, imports increased once more in April to 67,000 barrels per day, or 2.01 million barrels. With 132,000 barrels per day, or 3.96 million barrels, June was the largest inflow of the year.
In 2025, the volume grew even more, making up the majority of the imports throughout the two years. Nigeria received 41.06 million barrels of US crude between February and December of 2025.
The EIA states that it began the year with 111,000 barrels per day in February and increased gradually over the next few months.
Delivering around 9.15 million barrels in 30 days, imports reached their pinnacle in June 2025 at 305,000 barrels per day, the highest monthly rate in the dataset. August saw another significant inflow of 201,000 barrels per day, or 6.23 million barrels.
But when the year came to an end, the supply drastically decreased. In November, imports fell to 12,000 barrels per day, or just 0.36 million barrels; in December, they slightly increased to 23,000 barrels per day, or 0.71 million barrels.
According to data available for January of 2026, Nigeria imported 4.93 million barrels, or 159,000 barrels per day.
The total for 2024, 2025, and January 2026 was 61.685 million barrels, which rounds to 61.7 million barrels, according to a breakdown of the data.
The development draws attention to a contradiction in Nigeria’s oil industry: despite exporting significant amounts of crude oil, the nation nonetheless has trouble providing enough feedstock to its own refineries.
Due to its limited capability for refining, Nigeria had to import refined petroleum products like gasoline and diesel for many years. The country presently imports crude oil for domestic processing rather than finished fuels after the Dangote refinery was put into service in 2024.
Aliko Dangote once stated that the necessity to close the gap between the domestic crude supply and the refinery’s operational needs was the main reason for the imports from the United States.
One of the biggest single-train refineries in the world, the Dangote complex needs more than 19 million barrels of feedstock each month to operate at peak efficiency.
Our correspondent was informed by sources that although Ghana sells crude to other nations, the Dangote plant purchases crude from Ghana and other African nations.
Despite worries about feedstock shortages experienced by domestic refineries, Nigeria exported an estimated 306.7 million barrels of crude oil between January and October 2025, according to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
According to the data, the nation produced around 443.5 million barrels during the course of ten months, or 1.45 million barrels each day on average, but a sizable amount of that production was exported.
Between January and October, exports accounted for around 69% of total output, leaving about 137 million barrels for domestic usage.
Similarly, despite the Dangote refinery’s ongoing problems with insufficient local feedstock supplies, Nigeria exported 55.39 million barrels of crude oil in the first two months of 2026.
The nation exported 24.08 million barrels in February and 31.31 million barrels in January, according to CBN data.
Crude production averaged 1.46 million barrels per day in January, while exports came in at 1.01 mbpd. While exports averaged 0.86 mbpd in February, output dropped to 1.31 mbpd. In the first two months of 2026, a total of 81.94 million barrels of crude were produced, leaving 26.55 million barrels for local refineries.
Despite the naira-for-crude arrangement, the Dangote refinery frequently complained about poor crude availability, which forced it to source feedstock from Ghana and the United States.
Additionally, the Crude Oil Refiners Association of Nigeria bemoaned the occasional closure of some of its modular refineries as a result of insufficient crude supply.
