ABUJA: According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) India’s import of crude oil from Nigeria hit a record high in April.
Nigeria’s largest oil importer hit a record high (20.373 million barrels) in April. However, imports from India fell to 7.765 million barrels in March while in August, October and November last year imports stood at 16.349, 13.7 and 12.4 million barrels respectively.
Other major importers of Nigeria in the region are Singapore, Indonesia and China.
The experts note that the Asian region, which is now increasingly a major target market for many oil exporters amid sustained oil price decline, is a key market for Nigeria.
The NNPC data shows that total oil exports rose to 63.988 million barrels in April, up from 62.677 million barrels in March.
Eklavya Gupte, the senior editor of the Europe and Africa Oil publication stated that Nigeria should focus more on the Asian markets as refining in Europe had been falling in recent times.
He said:“One of the biggest challenges for Nigeria is to find new buyers and keep its regular buyers. Europe is the biggest regional market for Nigeria. The refineries in Europe are not doing well. Refining is falling, and to have a region like that as your biggest market is not a very positive thing.Asia is where the demand is now. The biggest challenge will be to attract a lot of demand from Asia”.
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