Filling stations in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital city, have increased the price of a litre of petrol from ₦860 to ₦930, making consumers pay at least ₦70 more than what it used to cost them to buy a litre of the premium commodity days ago.
The price increase has now taken effect in regions like Abuja and major northern cities, where oil outlets are selling petrol at ₦950 to ₦970 per litre, depending on the filling station. This marks a significant rise of approximately ₦70 to ₦90 from the previous price of ₦880 just last week.
Filling stations such as MRS Oil & Gas, Ardova Plc, Heyden, and others with special agreements with Dangote Petroleum Refinery have adjusted their prices accordingly. Other stations like Matrix Energy, North-West Petroleum, Total Energies, Mobil, Bovas, Enyo, and several others have also followed suit.
This price adjustment came after Dangote Refinery’s announcement that it would temporarily halt the sale of petroleum products in Naira.
Tankers began lifting petrol from the Dangote Refinery in Lagos on September 15, 2024. The refinery explained that this move was necessary to prevent a mismatch between the sales proceeds and crude oil purchase obligations, which are currently denominated in US dollars.
The $20bn refinery, located in Lagos, stated that sales in Naira had exceeded the value of Naira-denominated crude it had received from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). Therefore, it had to temporarily adjust its sales currency to match the currency used for crude procurement.
Despite this, the refinery assured the Nigerian market that it would resume selling products in Naira once it receives crude cargoes from NNPCL in Naira.
This announcement came amidst a price war between Dangote Refinery and NNPCL. On February 26, 2025, Dangote Refinery slashed the ex-depot price of petrol from ₦890 to ₦825 per litre. Under the new pricing scheme, customers paid ₦860 per litre at selected outlets in Lagos, ₦870 in the South-West, ₦880 in the North, and ₦890 in the South-South and South-East. Dangote also recently reduced diesel prices.
In response, NNPCL quickly dropped its retail price from ₦945 to ₦860 in Lagos, with similar price reductions across its outlets in other states.
Dangote Refinery, which was commissioned in May 2023, has been praised by some analysts and industry experts for potentially eroding the abnormal profits enjoyed by capitalists. However, petrol marketers still importing the product have lamented the losses incurred from the price drop.
In efforts to reduce the strain on US dollars and stabilize the prices of petroleum products, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) directed NNPCL in July 2024 to sell crude oil to Dangote Refinery and other local refineries in Naira, rather than in US dollars.
In March 2025, NNPCL confirmed that its Naira-denominated crude sales agreement with Dangote Refinery was set to expire in March 2025, but discussions were ongoing to renew the contract. Since October 2024, over 48 million barrels of crude oil have been supplied to Dangote Refinery under the Naira-denominated agreement, with more than 84 million barrels delivered since the refinery’s operations began in 2023.
Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, faces significant energy challenges, with all its state-owned refineries having been non-operational for decades until 2024. The country heavily relied on imported refined petroleum products, with NNPCL being the major importer.
One of the state-owned plants, the Port Harcourt Refinery, has recently resumed operations. Fuel queues remain common in the country, and petrol prices have more than quadrupled since the subsidy removal in May 2023, from around ₦200 per litre to nearly ₦1,000, exacerbating the struggles of citizens who rely on petrol for vehicles and power generation due to unreliable electricity.
In December 2024, Dangote Refinery began operations at its Lagos facility, initially processing 350,000 barrels a day, with plans to reach its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day by the end of 2025. The refinery has already started supplying diesel and aviation fuel to marketers and is now supplying petrol as well.
