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Nigeria is no longer arguing about whether it can refine petrol.
It is arguing about whether it should still import the same product now that a large local refinery exists.
On one side are marketers, some officials, and a competition argument that says a cargo at the jetty keeps prices honest and low.
On the other side are domestic refiners and an industrial argument that says a standing import window for generic Premium Motor Spirit, after the country has built the capacity to make it, does not incentivise local value addition. It is a decision to keep the old model: export crude, import petrol, spend dollars.
The correct side depends on what you think imports are for.
What the numbers now show
Daily PMS use in Nigeria for 2026 has often sat in the low-to-mid 40 million litres. With Dangote’s nameplate capacity at 650,000 barrels a day, the company says that at full run it can supply about 75 million litres of PMS a day, plus diesel and jet fuel above domestic need.
Regulator data for August 2026 showed the refinery producing about 42 million litres of PMS a day, sending about 36 million into the local market, exporting nearly 10 million, and closing the month with large stocks. Diesel imports have already fallen toward zero in some months.
Nigeria now relies mainly on local supply. At the same time, the regulator has still issued quarterly import permits — including about 830,000 tonnes of PMS for the fourth quarter of 2026 — and a Federal High Court has told NMDPRA to keep processing licences for named marketers if they meet the statute. Dangote has gone to court to stop what it calls unnecessary licences.
The case for imports
The import camp wins on diversification. Nigeria has one large private refinery doing most of the work. The old NNPC plants are not a reliable second source. If Lekki has a fire, or a long refinery turnaround, an import licence you can use quickly is insurance.
The competition case is also simple. A refinery that can cover national demand has pricing power. If the local ex-depot price sits above the cost of a landed cargo, then a monopoly is created.
The case against treating imports as a cost policy
The question is whether cheap imports should be the way to deal with expensive local production if it exists.
Imports exist to cover a production gap. It’s bad economics if it becomes the long-term rule. Imports are not a substitute for a high local cost structure. If local refining is expensive because crude is sold to the plant at a premium, or because logistics are broken, importing cargo does not fix those things. It hides them. Next quarter, you still have the same plant, the same costs, and another dollar invoice.
Countries that preach open trade still make this distinction. The United States exports billions in wheat but also imports wheat. What it imports is not generic “wheat.” It is a high-grade durum wheat for pasta. The US does not run a standing policy of importing generic wheat to discipline its local prices.
The Petroleum Industry Act already leans that way. Section 317 allows a backwards-integration policy in the downstream and treats import licences as a response to shortfall, assigned with an eye to companies that refine or that have a real trading book. The natural reading is residual imports, not a parallel permanent channel for the same molecule.
There is also a balance-of-payments point. A cargo of important ordinary PMS is dollars and jobs leaving Nigeria. A litre refined from Nigerian crude and sold at home is a dollar that does not have to leave Nigeria. A standing import window for a generic product tells the next investor that the state will defend the import book more reliably than local refiners.
Imports for time, circumstance, or need — not as a cost strategy
The clean rule is not “never import,” but rather “always import.”
Import when output plus independently checked stocks cannot cover a published demand figure for a set number of days. Import when the plant is down. Import a named spec the local slate is not making that week. Publish the reason on the licence.
Do not import generic PMS to pull down local costs. Local costs fall when crude pricing to domestic refiners is transparent and not loaded with an unexplained premium; when pipelines, barges and trucks work; when power and gas are reliable; and when port and storage charges are not exorbitant. Those are cost problems. Imports alone can’t fix a local cost problem, in the long term.
Using imports to “solve” high local prices is the same error as using a subsidy to “solve” a nonfunctional plant. The price at the pump may ease for a month. The structure does not change. You have spent the dollars and still have the expensive local system.
What a workable settlement looks like
First, a public weekly dashboard: local output, stocks by region, consumption, and every import parcel with its spec. If the dashboard shows surplus and exports, the default is no generic PMS window.
Second, standby licences that activate on a trigger, not on a set timetable. A trigger is a stock day-count, a declared turnaround, or a regional delivery failure.
Third, competition policy aimed at the real bottleneck. Protect the industry. A refiner should not be able to refuse supply solely because a marketer holds a standby permit. Other countries defend factories and still police dominance.
Fourth, expand local refining capacity. thats the real. Insurance
The intent test
Cheap imports are not the solution to expensive local production. They can be specific to time, circumstance, or need. Local costs have to be brought down by reducing local costs.
Nigeria does not need to act more “free trade” than the countries that lecture it. It also doesn’t need to pretend that one refinery is all it needs to fill the gaps. However, don’t import the staple you already make, then call that a plan to make the staple cheaper.
