Petrol consumption dropped to 47.3 million litres daily in March – NMDPRA

Daily consumption of petroleum motor spirit, also known as petrol, fell to 47.3 million litres per day in March, down from 56.9 million litres per day in February, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) said.

This represents a 16.87 per cent decrease, according to NMDPRA’s March 2026 fact sheet released on Tuesday.

Despite the decrease in consumption, the oil and gas regulator said marketers’ fuel imports increased. In March, it rose to 5.9 million litres per day, compared to three million litres per day in February.

The data showed that while the total daily supply of petrol climbed from 39.5 million litres to 40.1 million litres in March, domestic supply dropped from 36.5 million litres per day in February to 34.2 million litres per day.

In addition, fuel stock sufficiency was reported at 21 days, compared to 30.7 days in February.

On the performance of local refineries, NMDPRA noted that Dangote Refinery produced 48.2 million litres of fuel daily, with a domestic supply of 34.2 million litres per day. Similarly, it produced 16.5 million litres of diesel daily, with a daily supply of 2.2 million litres.

It added that the Warri Refinery (WRPC) and Kaduna Refinery (KRPC) remained inactive and that while operations at Port Harcourt Refinery were also shut down, “evacuation of AGO produced while the refinery was operational averaged 0.048 million litres/day.”

NMDPRA said the Waltersmith Refinery’s second train continued the introduction of hydrocarbons in March following the commencement in February.

Meanwhile, the daily supply of diesel declined from 24.4 million litres in February to 10.3 million litres in March, while domestic output dropped from 8.8 million litres to 3.9 million litres. Similarly, imports dropped from 15.6 million litres per day to 6.4 million litres per day.

Diesel consumption also declined from 20.3 million litres per day to 14.5 million litres per day, while stock sufficiency surged from 47.6 days to 55 days.

For Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), the daily supply remained 4.7 kilotonnes in March, with domestic diesel supply up from 4.0 kilotonnes to 4.5 kilotonnes and imports decreasing to 0.2 kilotonnes from 0.7 kilotonnes.

LPG’s daily supply dropped slightly in March from 5.2 kilotonnes to 5.1 kilotonnes, while the national sufficiency was 14 days.

NMDPRA clarified that the consumption data is based on volumes trucked out into the domestic market.

It said the daily petrol benchmarks for 2026 are set for 50 million litres per day, diesel at 14 million litres, aviation fuel at three million litres and LPG at 3,900 kilotonnes.

“This verified data underscores Nigeria’s strategic transformation in the energy sector, emphasising reduced imports, strengthened domestic production, job creation, safety improvements, and economic stability,” NMDPRA added.