Nigeria Crude OilMerchant
Market intelligence

How Nigerian crude oil is priced

Nigerian crude is not sold at a fixed price, and nobody holds a secret discount. Each cargo is priced as a differential to the Dated Brent benchmark. This guide explains the mechanism, shows dated examples, and lists the free public places to see indicative prices — with their limits.

We do not publish live or current prices

The formula

Under NNPC's general terms and conditions (the contract is walked through in how Nigerian crude is sold), the price of a cargo is FOB, in US dollars per barrel: the average of published Dated Brent quotations over a pricing window, plus or minus the official selling price (OSP) differential that NNPC sets for the grade each month.1 Commercial procedure The contract describes this as the price at which crude is sold to buyers generally — every term buyer receives the same formula.

Benchmark
Dated Brent, as published by a price-reporting agency.
Differential
NNPC's monthly OSP for the grade, a premium or discount in dollars per barrel. Argus notes these are set by NNPC for a given loading month and are typically announced in the second half of the preceding month.23
Pricing window
The buyer elects one of three options — prompt, advance or deferred — relative to the bill of lading date; prompt is the default.1 Nigeria's transparency audit describes a five-day Dated Brent average keyed to the bill of lading date.4
Payment
Thirty days after the bill of lading date, under a letter of credit.1

Producers selling their own barrels, and traders reselling, negotiate spot differentials against the same benchmark, and the differential varies by grade with quality — compare the streams in the Nigerian crude grade database. Price-reporting agencies assess those differentials daily for cargoes loading 20 to 45 days ahead, FOB Nigeria.2

Dated examples of differentials

These are historical illustrations of how far differentials move. They are not current prices.

NNPC official selling price differentials to Dated Brent, US dollars per barrel, as reported by the sources cited.
Loading monthBonny LightQua IboeForcadosContext
May 20203−3.95−3.92−3.91Pandemic demand collapse; dozens of cargoes unsold
March 20225+1.93+2.16—Tight light sweet market

OPEC's statistical bulletin gives annual average Bonny Light prices of US$41.53 in 2020, US$70.63 in 2021, US$103.63 in 2022, US$83.46 in 2023 and US$82.22 in 2024.6 In 2026, press reports described unusually high premiums during disruption to Middle Eastern supply; we do not reproduce those figures because we could not open a primary source for them.

Not to be confused: the regulator's fiscal price

The Petroleum Industry Act requires royalties to be calculated on a fiscal oil price determined by the upstream regulator, approximating fair market value on an export-parity basis.7 Law / regulation The regulator publishes monthly fiscal differentials by grade for that purpose. They are a tax valuation, not a sale price: the regulator does not set the price of commercial cargoes.

Where to see indicative prices free of charge

SourceWhat it givesLimitation
Central Bank of Nigeria8Monthly Bonny Light price, production and exportsMonthly average, published with a lag; not a transactable price
OPEC bulletins6Bonny Light as a component of the OPEC Reference BasketMonthly and annual values are historical
US EIA import cost series9Landed cost of Nigerian crude imported into the USLagged, mixes grades, includes freight, and recent months are often withheld
Argus, S&P Global PlattsDaily differentials, outright prices and OSP tablesSubscription services whose assessments may not be republished
Why "price today" websites disagree

Free websites showing a daily Bonny Light price rarely disclose their source, and on the day we compared two of them their figures differed materially. We chose not to add another unsourced number to the internet. For a transaction, the price is whatever the contract formula produces on the pricing dates.

What this means when you receive an offer

  • A legitimate offer states a benchmark, a differential and a pricing window — not a flat price "per barrel, gross and net".
  • Differentials for Nigerian grades are typically a few dollars either side of Dated Brent. NNPC itself listed above-market discounts among the marks of a fraudulent offer; the other documented patterns are set out in the scam and verification centre.10
  • Use the cargo value calculator to see what a differential means across a 950,000-barrel cargo.

Sources

  1. NNPC Ltd — General terms and conditions for the sale and purchase of Nigerian crude oil (Part II of the contract, 2021–2023) (published 2022; retrieved 18 September 2026) Official2021–2023 edition; the current edition has not been located.
  2. Argus Media — Argus Crude methodology and specifications guide (West Africa typical qualities and cargo sizes) (published August 2026; retrieved 18 September 2026) Industry'Typical' values used for price assessment, not a laboratory assay.
  3. Argus Media — Nigerian NNPC cuts May official crude prices (published 28 April 2020; retrieved 18 September 2026) Industry
  4. Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative — Oil and gas industry audit report 2023 (published 26 September 2024; retrieved 18 September 2026) Government
  5. MarketForces Africa — NNPC raises official selling prices for March crude (published 22 February 2022; retrieved 18 September 2026) Secondary source
  6. OPEC — Annual Statistical Bulletin 2025 (published 2025; retrieved 18 September 2026) OfficialExport series may include lease condensate and oil in transit.
  7. Federal Republic of Nigeria — Petroleum Industry Act 2021 (Act No. 6 of 2021), Official Gazette No. 142, Vol. 108 (published 27 August 2021; retrieved 18 September 2026) Official
  8. Central Bank of Nigeria — Crude oil price, production and export table (retrieved 18 September 2026) GovernmentMonthly averages, published with a lag. Not a transactable price.
  9. U.S. Energy Information Administration — Landed costs of imported crude by area (retrieved 18 September 2026) GovernmentMonthly; recent months are often withheld for confidentiality.
  10. NNPC (statement by the Crude Oil Marketing Division, reported by Ripples Nigeria) — Public beware: scammers behind 98% of documents in crude oil marketing — NNPC (published 27 August 2017; retrieved 18 September 2026) Secondary sourceA 2017 statement by an NNPC official about documents circulating in the market — not an audited statistic.

Last reviewed 18 September 2026. Found an error? Tell us — see our methodology and corrections policy.