Nigeria’s energy market continues to grapple with steep price increases across key petroleum products, reflecting both global market pressures and domestic supply challenges.
Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol, recorded a sharp surge in consumer costs, with the average retail price rising to ₦1,596.25 per litre in May 2026, compared to ₦1,027.76 per litre in May 2025. This represents a year-on-year increase of 55.31 per cent, according to the latest Price Watch report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
On a month-to-month basis, however, the increase was more moderate, with petrol prices climbing 4.13 per cent from ₦1,532.93 per litre in April 2026.
The upward trend was not limited to petrol. Household kerosene, a critical fuel for millions of Nigerian homes, rose by 37 per cent over the same period, while automotive gas oil (diesel) — the backbone of industrial and commercial power generation — soared by an alarming 86 per cent.
These figures highlight the mounting cost burden on consumers and businesses alike, with ripple effects across transportation, manufacturing, and household energy consumption.
The sustained escalation in fuel prices underscores the urgent need for policy interventions, investment in local refining capacity, and diversification of Nigeria’s energy mix to cushion the impact on citizens and stabilize the economy.
Household kerosene, which remains an important cooking fuel for many families despite the growing adoption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), recorded the slowest annual increase among the three fuels. The average retail price stood at N2,971.94 per litre in May, up 36.62 per cent from N2,175.29 recorded a year earlier.
Although still too high for many families, unlike diesel and petrol, kerosene prices showed signs of easing monthly, with the average retail price per litre declining marginally by 0.17 per cent from N2,976.94 in April.
But the average retail price per gallon dropped by a much steeper 10.8 per cent to N11,949.39 from N13,396.23 recorded in the previous month. Nevertheless, on a year-on-year basis, the average price per gallon was still 40.88 per cent higher than the N8,482.22 recorded in May 2025.
While diesel experienced the steepest annual and monthly increases, petrol prices continued to rise at a slower pace, whereas kerosene was the only fuel to record a month-on-month decline. However,
Nigerians continued to contend with elevated energy costs in May as the prices of the country’s three major fuels remained substantially higher than they were a year earlier, with diesel recording the sharpest annual increase of 86.4 per cent.
Although the three fuels exhibited varying monthly movements, the year-on-year figures suggested that households, transport operators, manufacturers, and businesses are still paying significantly more for energy than they did in the corresponding period of 2025, underlining the persistence of fuel inflation across the economy.
According to the NBS data, the average retail price of Automotive Gas Oil (diesel) increased from N1,758.26 per litre in May 2025 to N3,277.47 in May 2026, representing an annual increase of 86.4 per cent, the highest among the three petroleum products tracked by the bureau. Diesel also posted the largest month-on-month increase, rising by 32.44 per cent from N2,474.69 recorded in April.
The sharp rise in diesel prices remained significant because the product is widely used by industries, commercial transport operators, manufacturers, and businesses that rely on self-generated electricity, making it a key input cost across several sectors of the economy.
All three products remained considerably more expensive than they were a year ago, underscoring the sustained pressure on household and business expenditure.
State-by-state data further highlighted wide disparities in fuel prices across the federation. For diesel, Nasarawa recorded the highest average retail price at N3,785.84 per litre, followed by Plateau at N3,576.40 and Ebonyi at N3,574.75. The lowest average prices were recorded in Kogi at N2,823.85, Benue at N2,961.33 and Kebbi at N3,016.14.
Petrol prices were highest in Edo, where consumers paid an average of N1,722.91 per litre. Bauchi followed at N1,715.47, while Benue recorded N1,698.57. At the other end of the spectrum, Adamawa posted the lowest average price at N1,469.83 per litre, followed by Katsina at N1,470.63 and Sokoto at N1,489.33.
Also, household kerosene was most expensive in Sokoto, where the average retail price reached N3,984.09 per litre. Jigawa followed with N3,824.68, while Taraba recorded N3,595.64. Bayelsa had the cheapest kerosene at N2,018.79 per litre, followed by Kogi at N2,348.81 and Ekiti at N2,511.31.
On zonal analysis, it equally reflected notable variations in fuel costs across the country. The North-west recorded the highest average diesel price at N3,313.60 per litre, while the South-west posted the lowest zonal average at N3,227.55.
For petrol, the South-south recorded the highest average retail price at N1,623.84 per litre, while the North-west had the lowest at N1,564.11.
Similarly, the North-west emerged as the most expensive zone for household kerosene at N3,343.12 per litre, followed by the North-east at N3,004.30, while the South-south recorded the lowest zonal average of N2,777.76.
