Crude Boost: Nigeria’s Oil Economy Expands by 5.84%
Atume Terfa
Nigeria’s petroleum industry staged an impressive comeback in the third quarter of 2025, powering a 5.84% jump in oil-GDP and marking the sector’s strongest performance in nearly a year. The rebound was fueled by higher crude output, which climbed to an 11-month peak and injected fresh momentum into the broader economy.
According to official data, average crude production rose to 1.64 million barrels per day (mbpd) in Q3 2025 — up from 1.47 mbpd in the same period last year. The increase reflects improved pipeline security, better asset uptime, and renewed investments in upstream operations.
Still, output slightly trailed the 1.68 mbpd recorded in Q2, signalling that Nigeria continues to wrestle with structural constraints such as theft, vandalism, and underinvestment that often disrupt production cycles.
Yet even with the strong performance, the oil sector’s overall economic weight remained slim. It contributed only 3.44% to total real GDP — a marginal rise from 3.38% in Q3 2024. The data underscores how Nigeria’s economy, once dominated by crude oil, is gradually rebalancing toward more diversified sources of growth.
The real engine of expansion came from outside the oil wells. The non-oil sector grew 3.91%, driven by solid activity in services, telecommunications, agriculture, and manufacturing. This helped push Nigeria’s overall GDP growth to 3.98% year-on-year, slightly above the 3.86% recorded in Q3 2024 but lower than the 4.23% posted in the previous quarter.
Services — including ICT, finance, and trade — continued to anchor the economy, contributing more than half of national output. Agriculture also strengthened despite weather-related pressures, while industry posted modest gains supported by improved energy supply and manufacturing resilience.
For Africa’s largest crude producer, the oil sector’s Q3 revival offers a welcome boost, but the numbers tell a broader story: Nigeria’s long-term economic trajectory increasingly hinges on the non-oil economy. While higher oil output provided a lift this quarter, sustainable and resilient growth will depend on how successfully the country expands productivity beyond the petroleum sector.
The latest figures reaffirm a clear message from economists: Nigeria may benefit from the barrel — but its future lies beyond it.
