Since the idea of the Dangote Oil Refinery, owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, was conceived, the goal has been to end Africa’s dependence on energy imports. In just one year, significant milestones have been reached concerning this goal.
The Dangote Oil Refinery, which has the goal to make Africa very energy self-sufficient by producing enough fuel to service the entire continent, is well on its way to achieving its goal.
In the space of a year, not only has the facility effectively ended West Africa’s fuel import dependence, in July, it reported that it had also shipped 1 million tons of fuel to markets outside the continent, demonstrating its capacity to achieve its ultimate goal.
Additionally, the refinery recently touted plans to expand its refining capacity from 650,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day.
It reported last month that it would be supplying Nigeria with 1.5 million liters of fuel during the month and next, upping the figure to 1.7 million liters by February next year.
With all these milestones reached in one year of operation, it comes as no surprise that the facility has effectively saved the country N6 trillion ($4 billion) in fuel import costs in the first 9 months of the year.
This information, as seen in the Punch newspaper, was disclosed by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics.
Fuel figures in the period under review
Between January and September 2025, the value of imported motor spirit, ordinary, was N5.42 trillion, much lower than the N11.50 trillion reported in the same period in 2024.
The decrease reflects a 52.82 percent reduction in the country’s petrol import bill, which experts attribute to increased local refining production and less reliance on offshore supplies.
A breakdown of quarterly data reveals that the drop has been continuous from the beginning of the year.
Nigeria spent N3.81tn on PMS imports in the first quarter of 2024, but this reduced to N1.76tn in the first quarter of 2025, representing a 53.8% decrease, or around N2.05 trillion.
The second quarter followed a similar trend, with PMS imports falling from N4.36 trillion in Q2 2024 to N2.38 trillion in Q2 2025.
This was a year-on-year decrease of N1.99 trillion, or 45.6 percent.
The third quarter saw the biggest contraction: fuel imports fell from N3.32 trillion between July and September 2024 to N1.29 trillion in the same time in 2025, a fall of N2.03 trillion or 61.2 percent.
Nigeria imported N6.07 trillion less PMS throughout the course of all three quarters than it did in 2024, highlighting the extent of the change in its petroleum supply system.
See here: Aliko Dangote Rekindles Investment Plans in Zimbabwe With $1 Billion
The NBS has not identified a single cause for the fall, although the rate and magnitude of the decline are consistent with continuous increases in domestic production capacity.
Additionally, since the 2023 subsidy reform, the pattern points to a progressive reduction in the foreign exchange pressure brought on by massive gasoline imports.
PMS continued to rank among the nation’s top imports until 2024, according to NBS statistics, although its percentage has gradually decreased.
