L-R: Chairman, FBN Holdings Plc, Femi Otedola; President/CE, Dangote Industries Limited Aliko Dangote; Vice President, Oil & Gas, Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, at the World Press Conference by Dangote on the expansion of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals from 650,000bpd to 1.4M bpd in Lagos on Sunday, October 26, 2025.
Whereas many observers are busy claiming that the amount spent on the importation of refined petroleum products has dropped sharply by 54 per cent in two years, falling from $14.58bn in the first nine months of 2023 to $6.71bn in the corresponding period of 2025, according to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Balance of Payments report, many are arguing that in a saner climes, price of petroleum products ought to have crashed beyond price wars by now.
Analysts say the beauty of domestic production is to avoid forex flights and drop prices, but upon new refinery owners do not spend forex any longer, they are not in any way working on crashing their product prices which was their key argument even before they started refining.
It would be recalled that when President Jonathan, Bua and Dangote were working on Cement Backward Integration few years ago, they told Nigerians that immediately local production hits the height of caring for local needs, imports will stop and cement prices will crash. But years alter, instead of price of cement crashing, it has jumped to the roof top And nobody is providing any cogent reason why it is so even the federal government that campaigned and powered backward integration.
On the differences between import prices, statistics showed that it declined from $14.58bn in the first nine months of 2023 to $11.38bn in the corresponding period of 2024, before dropping further to $6.71bn within nine months of 2025.
This is according to a comparative analysis of the 2023 and 2024 full-year and the Q3 2025 Balance of Payments presentation, released by the CBN and analyzed by experts.
The figures obtained from the CBN documents showed a sustained moderation in fuel importation, with import bills declining year-on-year over the period under review.
The data revealed that Nigeria spent $11.38bn on refined petroleum product imports between January and September 2024, representing a $3.20bn or 21.9 per cent decline compared with $14.58bn recorded in the same period of 2023, pointing to a sharp contraction in foreign exchange outflows associated with refined petroleum products.
The downward trend accelerated in 2025, with fuel imports dropping further by $4.67bn, or 41 per cent, to $6.71bn within the first nine months of the year, marking the steepest year-on-year contraction in the period analysed.
Overall, the figures show that Nigeria spent $7.87bn less on refined fuel imports in the first nine months of 2025 than it did in the corresponding period of 2023, underscoring a significant easing of foreign exchange outflows linked to petroleum product imports.
The CBN data also showed a 41 per cent year-on-year decline in refined petroleum product imports by the third quarter of 2025, signalling early signs of import substitution as new and rehabilitated refineries scale up operations.
