Nigeria’s oil sector expanded in the first quarter of 2026, posting its second consecutive year-on-year growth even as actual crude output declined, underscoring the widening gap between sector performance metrics and on-the-ground production realities.
Official data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed the oil sector recorded real growth of 2.57 percent in the January-to-March period, an improvement from the 1.87 percent expansion logged in the same quarter a year earlier. On a sequential basis, the sector surged 9.31 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2025, offering a partial bright spot in an otherwise constrained output environment.
The oil sector’s contribution to total real GDP stood at 3.92 percent in Q1 2026, slipping marginally from 3.97 percent in the corresponding period of 2025, though it rose from the 2.87 percent share recorded in the preceding quarter, according to the NBS GDP report.
Yet the headline growth figures masked a troubling decline in physical output. Nigeria pumped 1.55 million barrels per day in the first quarter, down from 1.62 million barrels per day in Q1 2025 and below the 1.58 million barrels per day produced in the fourth quarter of last year. The production drop arrives at a moment when global supply tightness should, in theory, reward major producers handsomely.
