Nigeria Secures ₦1.71trn Trade Surplus in Q4 2025 as Crude Oil Shipments Decline

Nigeria closed out the final quarter of 2025 with a healthy trade surplus amounting to ₦1.71 trillion, even as overall export volumes slipped, primarily because of lower crude oil deliveries abroad.

The latest Foreign Trade Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, made public on Tuesday, revealed that the country’s total merchandise trade reached ₦36.21 trillion during the period.

That total reflected a modest 1.07 per cent contraction from the ₦36.60 trillion posted in the same quarter of 2024 and an 8.94 per cent slide compared with the ₦39.77 trillion recorded in the third quarter of 2025.

Outbound shipments represented 52.36 per cent of the overall trade value, coming in at ₦18.96 trillion.

This marked a 5.25 per cent decline from the ₦20,014.33 billion achieved in Q4 2024 and a steeper 16.88 per cent drop from the ₦22,813.57 billion seen in the previous quarter.

Analysts at the bureau linked the weaker export performance squarely to reduced crude oil sales, which continued to dominate Nigeria’s outward trade.

Crude oil alone generated ₦9.70 trillion and accounted for 51.17 per cent of all exports, yet this was down 29.60 per cent from the ₦13.78 trillion earned in the corresponding quarter of 2024 and 24.24 per cent lower than the ₦12.81 trillion posted in Q3 2025.

Exports outside the crude category totalled ₦9.26 trillion, making up 48.83 per cent of total exports, while purely non-oil items contributed ₦3.15 trillion or 16.59 per cent of the export basket.

The Netherlands, India, Spain, France and Canada emerged as the top destinations for Nigerian goods, with the leading products shipped overseas being crude oil, natural gas, kerosene-type jet fuel, other petroleum gases in gaseous form and urea.

Imports, on the other hand, climbed to ₦17.25 trillion, posting a 3.98 per cent increase from the ₦16.59 trillion registered in Q4 2024 and a 1.73 per cent rise over the ₦16.96 trillion from the third quarter.

China retained its position as Nigeria’s biggest import source, followed by the United States, the Netherlands, India and Brazil.

Among the major items brought in were Premium Motor Spirit (petrol), durum wheat, crude petroleum oils and oils from bituminous minerals, cane sugar for refining, and used vehicles fitted with diesel or semi-diesel engines.

The National Bureau of Statistics emphasised that Nigeria managed to keep a positive trade balance for the whole of 2025, although the final-quarter result eased somewhat owing to the dip in crude oil export revenues.