Crude oil exports decline by 13.5% in one year

Nigeria’s crude oil exports dropped by 13.5% in the first quarter of 2026, when compared with figures from the first quarter of 2025. Data from the Q1 Foreign Trade Statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that Nigeria exported N12.96tr of the product in Q1 2025 but dropped to N11.20trn in Q1 2026. […]

Nigeria’s crude oil exports dropped by 13.5% in the first quarter of 2026, when compared with figures from the first quarter of 2025.

Data from the Q1 Foreign Trade Statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that Nigeria exported N12.96tr of the product in Q1 2025 but dropped to N11.20trn in Q1 2026.

This is despite the country witnessing a price windfall from the crude oil price increase owing to the US-Iran War that began in March.

A breakdown showed the country exported N3.40trn of the product in January 2026 which dropped to N2.97tr in February 2026 but increased to N4.84 trillion in March.

For Q1 2025, the country sold N4.20 trillion of the product in January which increased to N4.29trn in February and N4.45tr in March.

 This showed that sales in March prodded the quarter’s figure to climb the N11trn mark and helped lift Nigeria’s merchandise trade surplus to N7.55 trillion in Q1 2026, as stronger export receipts combined with lower imports to strengthen the country’s external position.

A comparison with previous quarters shows: Q1 2026, N11.20tr; Q4 2025 was N9.70tr; Q3 2025 was N12.81tr; Q2 2025 was N11.97tr; and Q1 2025 was N12.96tr.

Also, data showed that Nigeria’s average daily oil production fell in the first quarter of 2026, dropping to 1.55 million barrels per day (mbpd) from 1.62 mbpd in the first quarter of 2025.

This production decline represents a year-on-year drop of 0.07 mbpd, even though the oil sector’s financial contribution grew slightly in real terms due to global market prices.

But the Q1 2026 figure represents a 15.46% increase from Q4 2025 and the NBS also reported that crude oil exports accounted for 52.92% of Nigeria’s total exports during the quarter.

On the import side, Nigeria imported crude oil valued at N1.91 trillion during Q1 2026.

This indicated that the ongoing Iran conflict which started in February could have further supported Nigeria’s oil earnings if oil production was ramped up.

‘Nigeria should be refined product exporting nation’

Speaking with Daily Trust, Prof. Dayo Ayoade, an energy law expert at the University of Lagos, said there is no one single major reason why production has gone down as it has been fluctuating a bit like production normally does.

He explained that there are reasons such as historic underinvestment in the upstream operations over the years, which the PIA was supposed to fix.

He said the PIA has to now run its course in terms of this implementation to ensure that Nigerians get value of oil out of the ground on time to the markets.

“The volatility in the global markets due to the Strait of Hormuz crisis means that prices are a bit higher, so that’s a good thing. But then Nigeria has the obligation to allocate crude oil domestically to refineries such as Dangote refineries, so some oil will leave from that point of view,” he said.

He added that the country is still battling with oil theft and pipeline vandalization, stating that it seems the government is not really paying much attention to.

“How do we maximise profits from crude oil sales destruction? Well, you have to increase production if you want to maximise profits, it’s as simple as that..We need to increase our production beyond the 1.5 million barrels per tonne of OPEC, and then work towards at least 2 million barrels. Then we now face the problem of the UAE that recently left OPEC.

“We have to then ask ourselves, are we really interested in continuing with OPEC, or do we want to produce 4 million barrels per day? There are pros and cons to that, but that’s a debate for another time.

“So we need to combat, of course, oil theft and vandalization to have more oil to sell and the PIA must be the fiscal incentives in governance structures. The government is really serious about the PIA, it’s a lovely act, it can do a lot of good for the country. But more importantly, we need to reduce the costs of production.”

He lamented that Nigeria has one of the highest production costs per barrel in the world due to insecurity and oil vandalisations, which are big issues.

He also said there has been no serious attempt to limit regulatory costs due to different regulators that operators have to pay one licence or other fees.

“It’s not credible if we really want to spike up our price and Nigeria must transit, as we have been saying for many years now, we have to stop selling crude oil. We should not be relying much on it. Nigeria should be a refined product exporting nation. It’s when we do that, that we will be able to maximise export earnings.”