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Nigerians are using less petrol, and the numbers show it. Fresh analysis of regulator data by Daily Trust, published on Monday, finds that consumption of premium motor spirit (PMS) hit its lowest point of the past 13 months in August, as pump prices climbed. The picture for September is more nuanced: demand recovered a little, but remained well below the levels seen earlier in the year. Taken together, the two months show a country adjusting its fuel use to prices that now routinely top ₦1,400 a litre in some cities.
The headline figure comes from the factsheets of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA). Daily Trust reported that average consumption of 41.6 million litres a day in August was 31 percent below the 60.2 million litres recorded in January. Other outlets, including The Whistler and Legit.ng, put the August figure at 41.5 million litres, a small difference in rounding, and described it as a 14 percent fall from the 48.3 million litres a day consumed in July. The Guardian said it was the lowest level in the regulator’s 13-month series and well below the 13-month average of 51.1 million litres. The peak of that series was 63.7 million litres a day in December 2025, driven by festive travel.
A month-by-month look shows an unsteady decline, not a straight line. According to Daily Trust, consumption rose to 51.1 million litres in April, dropped to 46.3 million in May, recovered to 47.4 million in June and 48.3 million in July, before sliding to 41.6 million in August. The newspaper noted that there is no consistent pattern in the drop from month to month. Against the regulator’s 50 million litres a day benchmark, August consumption was about 83 percent, The Whistler reported, a shortfall of 8.5 million litres a day.
September needs a careful reading, because some of the framing of the story has bundled the two months together. NMDPRA’s September factsheet, released last week, showed consumption rising 7 percent to 44.4 million litres a day, according to Nairametrics. That is a partial rebound from the August low, but it is still about 13 percent below the 13-month average and far below the January level. So August was the record low and September was a modest recovery, not a new low. Calling both months the lowest in the series would overstate the data, and the figures support a narrower statement: demand has been depressed since mid-year and has not returned to earlier levels.
Why the drop? The most direct explanation is price. Daily Trust reported that rising petrol prices have led many Nigerians to leave their vehicles at home or stop using petrol-powered generators, which is the newspaper’s own reporting and not a measurement in the regulator’s data. The price rise, it said, was triggered by the US-Iran war that disrupted fuel supply. The NMDPRA data shows how sharply the cost of supply climbed: the gantry price of petrol from the local refinery rose by ₦185 per litre over 22 days, from ₦1,165 on August 21 to ₦1,350 by mid-September, according to Nairametrics. Experts quoted by The Whistler attributed the fall in consumption to the high prices of premium motor spirit in the preceding weeks. Brent crude, which has hovered around $100 to $110 in recent weeks, sits behind all of this.
It is important to understand what the regulator’s “consumption” figure measures. Legit.ng explained that the NMDPRA’s domestic receipts include petrol supplied through the Dangote refinery gantry and coastal evacuation volumes, while consumption reflects products distributed into the local market by trucks. In other words, it tracks fuel leaving depots for stations and buyers, not sales at the pump or fuel burned in engines. That matters because depots and retailers can build or run down stocks, so a month of weak distribution might partly reflect inventory decisions, and the official numbers may differ from what drivers actually bought. Even so, a fall of this size over several months is consistent with real demand being cut.
The supply side adds a twist. August was a month of ample supply even as consumption dropped. The NMDPRA said total daily petrol receipts rose 11 percent to 50.5 million litres in August from 45.5 million in July, and petrol stock sufficiency improved slightly to 22.9 days, per The Guardian. The Dangote refinery produced an average of 41.94 million litres of petrol per day, operated at 105.21 percent of capacity and ended August with 360.4 million litres in stock, according to Legit.ng. Daily Trust called it ironic that August saw one of the highest daily supplies into the local market while consumption hit its lowest. In September, the pattern reversed: receipts fell 23 percent to 38.7 million litres a day while consumption rose, leaving a shortfall of 5.7 million litres against demand and stock cover of 23.9 days, below the regulator’s 30-day benchmark.
The economic consequences reach beyond the pump. Cheaper-looking monthly averages hide the strain on households and small businesses that rely on petrol for transport and for generators. Daily Trust reported that many Nigerians find the ₦66 per litre discount offered through NNPC’s app inaccessible and too small to change prices of goods and services. The government has meanwhile introduced a 30-day arrangement in which NNPC Retail forgoes its margin, and President Bola Tinubu said last week that there will be no return to the old subsidy. Whether lower consumption is a sign of successful adjustment or of hardship is a matter of interpretation, and the data cannot settle it on its own. Households that cut trips or switched to cheaper transport are protecting their budgets, but they are also spending less on economic activity that depends on mobility.
There is a case for reading the trend more hopefully. Lower consumption reduces the import bill and the pressure on foreign exchange, and the regulator’s data shows that local refineries now supply about three quarters of petrol, with imports falling to 10.2 million litres a day in September. The first-half data showed local refineries supplying nearly 78 percent of petrol. But there is also a risk that persistent high prices push down demand without producing the intended benefits, as supply tightens and prices rise again in a self-reinforcing cycle. The reports reviewed do not forecast where consumption will go next.
What to watch is the October factsheet, which should show whether demand continues to recover or falls back, and whether the 30-day discount has any measurable effect on volumes. Another indicator is stock cover, which needs to approach the 30-day benchmark to give the market a buffer. The festive season, which typically lifts travel and fuel use, will test whether consumption can bounce back toward last December’s peak at current prices. The regulator publishes its monthly data on the NMDPRA website, and Daily Trust has the main analysis in its report on record-low petrol consumption.
Readers who follow Nigeria’s energy, economy and business stories can find more coverage at BusinessTech Nigeria. For now, the numbers say that Nigerians have already voted with their wallets: they are using less petrol, and the question is how long and at what cost.
