Legit.ng journalist Ruth Okwumbu-Imafidon has over a decade of experience in business reporting across digital and mainstream media.

Crude oil has again topped Nigeria’s export charts, as N12.96 trillion worth of crude and other petroleum products left the country’s shores in Q1, 2025.

The latest Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics was released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday, 12 June 2025, showing that this category made up 62.89% of Nigeria’s total exports in the quarter.

The report shows a 16.35% drop in crude oil exports compared to N15.49 trillion in Q1 2024, and a 6% drop compared to the preceding quarter, Q4 2024.

As expected, crude oil and other petroleum products remain at the top of Nigeria’s export list, accounting for almost two-thirds of total exports.

It is way ahead of other categories like Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Petroleum gases, Urea, Cocoa, and its related products.

The crude exports were thus crucial to Nigeria achieving a trade surplus of N5.17 trillion in Q1 2025, up by 51.07% from N3.42 trillion in Q4 2024. Nigeria also discovered and started selling the Obodo Blend in the same Q1 2025.

Note that crude oil was also top of Nigeria's export list in the NBS 2024 report, with about N138 trillion sold in the full year to account for 68% of total exports.

Out of Nigeria’s total crude exports for the period, these are the top buyers.

The NBS report highlights a persistent issue that the Crude Oil Refinery Owners Association of Nigeria has repeatedly complained about.

Local refiners have complained that the oil companies would rather sell their crude in the international market for dollars than sell locally to them.

It is interesting to note that Dangote Refinery recently imported over 14 million barrels of crude from the United States of America, meet its rising crude demands.

The federal government’s threat to revoke the international oil companies’ licences if they do not meet domestic crude supply obligations has not made much impact on the situation, as the domestic refineries still depend heavily on imported crude.

In related news, Nigeria is increasing its crude exports and has recently started shipping from the first indigenous onshore terminal at Otakikpo in Rivers state.

Legit.ng reported that the first shipment moved at 2 pm on Sunday, June 8, 2025, from the terminal when an off-taker vessel chartered by Shell lifted the maiden crude cargo from the terminal.

The Otakikpo onshore terminal is an expandable $1.3 billion facility managed by Green Energy International Limited (GEIL).

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Source: Legit.ng