Peppery falls in Nigeria’s premium motor spirit prices have continued for a third straight week, driven by swings in crude oil markets even as geopolitical tensions flared again. Brent and West Texas Intermediate both slipped to roughly $76 and $71 per barrel on Saturday, a move that came despite renewed airstrikes between the United States and Iran. The latest drop followed comments by US President Donald Trump suggesting that a ceasefire with Iran—and by extension with Israel—had ended. That remark initially pushed crude higher, but the rally faded, with prices cooling again on Thursday and then repeating the decline on Saturday.
Traders and fuel-market watchers had earlier pointed to the potential for higher domestic pump prices in Nigeria if Middle East tensions deepened further. Yet the impact appears to have been limited this time: the successive easing in crude oil prices fed through the downstream chain, helping reduce costs for fuel importers, gantry operations and depot-related pricing. Dangote Refinery’s gantry rate, along with depot owners’ ex-depot prices, fell to about N1,075 per litre after at least four separate adjustments that tracked the retreat in crude.
Those wholesale and intermediary pricing changes have also been reflected at the retail level over the same three-week period. On Sunday, July 12, 2026, the fuel pump price dropped by N167 per litre—equivalent to a decline of N131 per litre depending on the comparison basis—moving into a range of roughly N1,150 to N1,205 per litre. This was a step down from the June 18, 2026 pricing band of about N1,317 to N1,336 per litre in Abuja and surrounding areas.
In an interview on Saturday, Billy Gillis-Harry, national president of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, said he expects further reductions as long as crude continues to ease. He pointed to recent patterns involving Dangote Refinery and petrol retailers and marketers, arguing that the price cuts seen over the past three weeks are aligned with lower crude costs. At the same time, he warned that volatility remains a defining feature of the downstream sector, noting that movements in global oil prices can quickly translate into rapid changes at the pump.
