The Federal Government through the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority has stopped issuing import licences for petrol in 2026, effectively handing the Dangote Petroleum Refinery near total control of Nigeria’s domestic fuel supply.
Multiple sources at the NMDPRA and among major fuel importing companies confirmed that no licences had been issued for fuel imports this year. “It’s correct that we’ve not issued import licences this year. It is obvious that the local production has met national requirements. So there’s no need for importation,” an NMDPRA source said.
The numbers tell a dramatic story. Nearly all gasoline supplied domestically in February came from Dangote’s plant. Oil marketing firms including a unit of TotalEnergies, Conoil and MRS Nigeria, which imported 38 percent of the nation’s gasoline in January, had their licences suspended.
According to Punch, as at February, Dangote’s share of domestic petrol supply had climbed to approximately 92 percent, a seismic shift in a market that was almost entirely import dependent just two years ago.
NMDPRA figures show that local refineries supplied 36.5 million litres per day of petrol in February 2026. In January domestic refineries had supplied 40.1 million litres per day while imports accounted for 24.8 million litres, pushing total daily supply to 64.9 million litres, the first time in over a year that domestic production surpassed imports.
The achievement however arrives at the worst possible moment. With the Middle East war sending global crude prices above $100 per barrel, Dangote Refinery has been forced to raise its gantry price three times in a single week from N799 to N1,175 per litre because it prices its product against international crude benchmarks.
The painful irony is striking Nigeria finally has a domestic refinery meeting almost all its fuel needs, yet Nigerians are paying record prices precisely because that refinery ties its pricing to the same volatile global market that imported fuel was always exposed to.
The Dangote Refinery’s Managing Director David Bird acknowledged the tension, saying the refinery was doing everything possible to moderate price increases while maintaining supply. He confirmed the facility was running at close to its nameplate capacity of 650,000 barrels per day and producing between 50 million and 55 million litres of petrol daily.
The Federal Government’s decision to halt import licences has not been officially announced in any public statement it emerged through industry sources and regulatory confirmations.
That silence has drawn criticism from marketers and analysts who argue that Nigerians deserve a clear and transparent explanation of a policy change that directly affects what they pay at the pump every day.
The Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria warned that concentrating 92 percent of domestic supply in a single facility however large and capable creates systemic risk. Any disruption to Dangote Refinery’s operations, whether from technical faults, crude supply interruptions or external shocks, would immediately trigger a national fuel supply crisis with no import buffer to fall back on.
