The United States imported $578.78 million worth of crude oil from Nigeria in the first quarter of 2026, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This marked a 15.06 per cent drop from the $681.40 million recorded in the same period of 2025. The volume of crude imported also declined, falling to 7.84 million barrels in early 2026 from 8.44 million barrels a year earlier, a 7.03 per cent decrease. Monthly figures show U.S. imports from Nigeria dropped from 4.64 million barrels in February 2026 to 1.54 million barrels in March, with the CIF value falling from $345.33 million to $114.49 million in the same period.
Customs value data, which excludes freight and insurance, also reflected a decline, standing at $561.69 million in 2026 year-to-date compared to $663.79 million in 2025. Nigeria remained a key African supplier of crude to the U.S., but its share of total African exports to the country fell to 34.8 per cent in Q1 2026 from 61.7 per cent in Q1 2025. Total U.S. crude imports from Africa rose to $1.66 billion in the first quarter of 2026 from $1.10 billion in 2025, indicating increased supply from other African nations such as Libya and Ghana. The U.S. trade report stated that CIF values include landed costs, offering a fuller picture of import flows.
Nigerian crude output averaged 1.56 million barrels per day in March 2026, unchanged from February but up from 1.51 million in January. However, crude oil sales by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited dropped to 17.37 million barrels in March from 25.75 million in January. The NNPC attributed the decline to pipeline disruptions, specifically a leak on the Trans Forcados Pipeline at the Keremor axis between February 20 and March 25. The company said the outage caused production curtailments across several assets and acknowledged ongoing evacuation and logistics challenges. It added that restoration efforts are underway to improve asset reliability and resolve evacuation constraints.
NNPC claims to be fixing pipeline issues while reporting a major drop in March crude sales, yet output figures stayed flat month-on-month. The company's explanation of production curtailments due to the Trans Forcados Pipeline outage does not align with unchanged daily output. If volumes were not falling, then the problem may lie more in evacuation than production. This raises questions about how NNPC measures and reports supply disruptions.
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