Destination shares, 2025
The Central Bank of Nigeria's 2025 annual report, as relayed by Vanguard, puts crude export earnings at US$31.54 billion, down 14.4% from US$36.85 billion in 2024.1 By region: Europe 46.51%, Asia 21.97%, North America 14.77%, Africa 13.92% and South America 2.41%.1
Per cent of US$31.54 billion. Declared destination, by value. Source: Central Bank of Nigeria 2025 annual report via Vanguard.1
Volumes, 2024
Value shares depend on price and grade mix, so volume data are a useful cross-check. OPEC's Annual Statistical Bulletin gives Nigerian crude exports of 1,522 thousand barrels per day in 2024, of which 621 went to OECD Europe, 379 to Africa, 208 to the OECD Americas, 134 to other Asia, 98 to India, 51 to Latin America and 16 to China.2 The EIA, using tanker-tracking estimates, puts total crude and condensate exports lower, at about 1.3 million barrels per day, with Spain at 153, France 128, India 123 and Indonesia 95 thousand barrels per day.3 The two organisations use different methods — OPEC's series may include condensate and oil in transit — and we report both rather than reconcile them artificially.
Country and buyer profiles
We publish a dedicated profile only where there is strong trade evidence and enough country-specific information to be useful. Smaller or poorly documented destinations are covered in the notes below rather than given thin pages of their own.
| Market profile | Region | Share, 2025 | Documented buyers |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | Asia | 9.00% | 2 |
| Spain | Europe | 10.46% | 2 |
| United States | North America | 6.02% | 2 |
| Indonesia | Asia | 7.80% | 1 |
| Netherlands (Rotterdam hub) | Europe | 8.56% | — |
| France | Europe | 10.27% | 1 |
| Canada | North America | 8.75% | — |
| Italy | Europe | 7.51% | 2 |
| South Africa | Africa | 4.98% | — |
| West Africa | Africa | — | 3 |
| Dangote refinery (domestic) | Nigeria | — | — |
Who sells to these buyers
Refiners rarely buy from unknown intermediaries. The cargoes documented on our country pages were sold by producers' trading arms (TotalEnergies, Shell), by global trading houses (Vitol, Glencore) or by NNPC through tenders.4567 Published lists of NNPC term-contract holders from past cycles show the same names recurring — Vitol, Trafigura, Mercuria, Oando, Sahara and NNPC's own Duke Oil among them.8 We have not found a published list for 2024–2026. How these channels work is explained in how Nigerian crude oil is sold. The grades these refiners buy are profiled in the Nigerian crude grade database.
Destinations without a dedicated page
- Germany, United Kingdom and other Europe. Germany appears with 2.22% of 2025 earnings,1 probably understated because crude landed at Rotterdam is recorded as Dutch — see the Netherlands profile. We found no refinery-level evidence for the UK or Sweden.
- South America. Peru (1.33%), Uruguay (0.89%) and Brazil (0.19%) together are small.1 Brazil was a major buyer in the 2000s9 but is now a competing exporter of similar crude.
- China. Only 16 thousand barrels per day in 2024 on OPEC's figures.2
- Pakistan. A first-ever 500,000-barrel Bonny Light cargo was sold by Vitol to Pakistan Refinery for September 2025 loading — a single event, not yet a market.6
- Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand. We found no destination data showing meaningful Nigerian crude imports, so we make no claims about them.
How to read destination data
- Declared destination is not always the end user. Rotterdam is a hub; ship-to-ship transfers off Togo appear as Togolese imports.
- Naira values mislead across years because of devaluation. We prefer US-dollar or volume data for trends.
- Sources disagree on rankings. Nigeria's statistics bureau often ranks India first by quarter; the central bank's annual data place Spain and France ahead. Timing and valuation differ.
- Exports are not the whole picture. The Dangote refinery now absorbs a large share of production domestically.