Nigeria is on course to become the world’s top destination for new refinery construction between 2026 and 2030, with Industrial Info Resources (IIR), a global industrial intelligence firm, projecting $10.74 billion in modular refinery investment across the country during that period.
The projection, reported via The Punch, places Nigeria ahead of major refining markets including the United States, Iran, China, and Iraq. IIR identified 24 new refinery projects currently under development in Nigeria — more than any other nation the organisation has examined. The US and Iran each have 11 planned refineries, Iraq has eight, and China has five.
If completed by 2031, these projects would expand Nigeria’s total refining capacity to 2.64 million barrels per day (bpd), a scale that would fundamentally alter the country’s position in global energy markets. Nigeria has historically exported crude oil while importing the bulk of its refined petroleum products — a structural imbalance that has long drained foreign exchange reserves and exposed consumers to global price volatility.
Hillary Stevenson, Vice President of Energy Intelligence at IIR, noted that modular refineries — smaller, faster-to-deploy units that can be built incrementally — would account for the majority of the anticipated capacity expansion, underscoring their growing centrality to Nigeria’s downstream strategy.
The source material does not specify which operators or consortia are behind the largest individual projects, nor does it clarify whether the $10.74 billion figure represents entirely new capital commitments or includes existing project financing already in place.
The push builds on momentum generated by the Dangote Refinery, now Africa’s largest refining facility, which has already shifted Nigeria’s trade position in refined products. The 650,000 bpd plant has enabled Nigeria to become a net exporter of gasoline and a significant supplier of jet fuel to European markets — a reversal that would have seemed improbable just a few years ago.
IIR stated that continued investment in both new and existing refining infrastructure has the potential to transform Nigeria’s downstream oil sector and reduce the country’s long-standing dependence on imported petroleum products.
Beyond domestic supply, analysts expect increased domestic refining to position Nigeria as a meaningful exporter of refined products to other African markets, where fuel import dependency remains widespread.
For international investors and energy traders, the scale of Nigeria’s refinery pipeline signals a structural shift in how Africa’s largest crude producer intends to capture value from its own resources — moving from raw commodity exporter to refined product supplier across the continent and beyond.
