Nigeria’s daily consumption of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, rose by 10.78 per cent in April 2026 to 52.4 million litres despite rising global prices.
Data newly released by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) noted that the rise was from 47.3 million litres recorded in March.
The development comes as the ongoing crisis in the Middle East has pushed crude oil prices as high as $106 per barrel as of Wednesday.
The Strait of Hormuz, controlled by Iran, has been effectively shut, disrupting supplies and forcing crude oil and petrol tankers to reroute, eventually leading to diversion of energy products.
Local refineries, including the Dangote, have struggled to get crude stock for refining, as they rely heavily on importation, whose prices are determined by the global market dynamics.
Petrol pump prices have skyrocketed globally and in Nigeria since the Iran/Israel/US war started in February, hitting as high as an average of N1,370 per litre in April.
However, despite the increase in pump prices of about 13.8 per cent from the N1,180 per litre average recorded in March, NMDPRA’s data showed that petrol consumption still rose in April.
In its April 2026 report released yesterday, the regulator disclosed that combined petrol supply from the Dangote Refinery and imports also rose by 10.7 per cent to 44.4 million litres per day in April, compared to 40.1 million litres per day in March.
A breakdown of the figures showed that supply from the Dangote Refinery rose by 19 per cent to 40.7 million litres per day in April from 34.2 million litres per day in March, while petrol imports dropped sharply by 37.3 per cent to 3.7 million litres per day from 5.9 million litres per day in March.
The report further showed that imported crude oil declined by 95.65 per cent to 0.41 million barrels in April, from 9.43 million barrels recorded in March.
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Similarly, crude oil supply from Nigerian upstream companies to local refineries increased by 56 per cent to 17.99 million barrels in April, compared to 11.48 million barrels supplied in March.
According to the NMDPRA, the 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote Refinery achieved 99.12 per cent capacity utilisation in April, while the government-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna remained inactive.
On the flip side, Nigeria’s crude oil output rose marginally to 1.663 million barrels per day in April 2026 from 1.546 million bpd recorded in March, including condensates, according to the report.
Trump And The War
US President Donald Trump insisted he does not need help from China on ending the war with Iran, but said he would talk at length with Xi Jinping when they meet this week.
He told reporters before leaving for Beijing: “We’re going to have a long talk about it.”
But he added, “We have a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control.”
US Must Accept Deal – Iran
Iran’s chief negotiator said the US must accept Tehran’s latest peace plan or face failure, a day after Trump said the ceasefire was on “life support”.
“There is no alternative but to accept the rights of the Iranian people as laid out in the 14-point proposal. Any other approach will be completely inconclusive; nothing but one failure after another,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X.
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