NNPC has shipped its maiden crude cargo to Europe, marking a shift from Nigeria’s long-standing FOB market structure.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) has clinched another breakthrough export deal by shipping out its own cargo to a customer in Europe, THISDAY learnt at the weekend.
The crude will be loaded on 9 or 10 April on Greek owner Delta Tankers’ 164,000-dwt Meltemi I (built 2006), chartered by the Nigerian producer’s NNPC Shipping, TradeWinds Media Group reported.
“NNPC Trading concluded in March a deal to sell the first delivered crude cargo to one of the big oil majors,” Panos Gliatis, Managing Director of NNPC Shipping, told TradeWinds.
The deal has been done on an ex-ship basis, where the seller takes responsibility for shipping and insurance. The tanker has options to discharge in various ports in Europe.
“This is a milestone for NNPC and Nigeria. So far it was considered a free-on-board market,” Gliatis was quoted to have added.
The deal follows on from the company’s first shipments of LNG on the same basis last year. TradeWinds reported in August that the move was “in line with its strategic vision to be a dynamic and reliable global energy supplier of choice”. Two gas shipments went to Japan and China.
The milestone was achieved through the collaboration of NNPC LNG and NNPC Shipping. The first cargo was delivered on Knutsen OAS Shipping’s 174,000-cbm LNG carrier Grazyna Gesicka (built 2023) to Futtsu, Japan. Another vessel then went to China. NNPC has been involved in LNG trading since 2021.
The group has since said it is forming a joint venture with Stena Bulk in Sweden to own a fleet of tankers and gas carriers to serve West African markets. The two companies will form the venture with domestic oil and gas logistics firm Caverton Marine.
The operation is targeting a modern and efficient fleet, comprising new and existing tonnage depending on market factors and commercial opportunities in the region, the partners said.
The plan is likely to have arisen out of a suezmax charter deal agreed last year by NNPC Shipping and the Stena group.
In October, NNPC Shipping fixed crude tankers to supply oil to Nigeria’s huge new Dangote refinery. The company reached a deal to supply two suezmaxes on time charter for the business.
Also, Asia’s oil hub of Singapore is set to receive more fuel oil from Nigeria’s Dangote refinery in April, following a jump in arrival volumes last month, according to trade sources.
The refinery has offered additional residual fuel for export in its latest tender this week, with the cargo set to load between April 17 and April 19, sources told Reuters.
The combination cargo will comprise about 85,000 metric tons of low-sulphur straight-run fuel oil and 35,000 tons of slurry. The tender closes on Friday, sources said.
Prior to this, the refiner had sold a cargo for loading scheduled between April 10 and April 12, based on tender records compiled by Reuters. Asia was the top destination for fuel oil exports from the Dangote refinery in 2024, based on data from shipping analytics firm Kpler.
Dangote exports fuel oil on an occasional basis depending on refinery plant status, sources said. Asia received a record monthly high of Nigerian fuel oil arrivals in March totalling more than 300,000 tons, data from Kpler showed.
Expectations of higher supplies are expected to cap fuel oil benchmarks in Asia, which have already softened in recent sessions.
The vessels came from the Stena Sonangol Suezmax Pool, controlled by Stena and Angola oil producer Sonangol.
Also at the weekend, oil prices plunged to their lowest in over three years as China ramped up tariffs on US goods, escalating a trade war that has led investors to price in a higher probability of recession.
China, the world’s top oil importer, announced it will impose additional tariffs of 34 per cent on all US goods from April 10. Nations around the world have readied retaliation after Trump raised tariffs to their highest in more than a century.
Oil fell to as low as $60 per barrel on Friday, raising fears over Nigeria’s capacity to fund its budget this year. Although, it may likely lower fuel pump prices in Nigeria, it is also likely to lower government revenue. Nigeria’s benchmark in the 2025 budget is set at $75 per barrel.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs analysts have responded with sharp cuts to their December 2025 targets for Brent and WTI by $5 each to $66 and $62 respectively.
“The risks to our reduced oil price forecast are to the downside, especially for 2026, given growing risks of recession and to a lesser extent of higher OPEC+ supply,” the bank’s head of oil research, Daan Struyven, said in a note.
It stated that it expects oil demand to grow by 600,000 bpd in 2025, down from its previous forecast of 900,000 bpd, and to increase by 700,000 bpd in 2026.
Goldman lowered its forecast for Brent crude oil’s average price this year by 5.5 per cent to $69 per barrel and for US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices by 4.3 per cent to $66 per barrel, citing the risks of higher supply by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) and the global tariff-led trade war, likely triggering a recession.
It showed OPEC’s flexibility to rapidly implement large output hikes, diminishing the likelihood of a short-term price boost from lower supply. The brokerage said it now expects oil demand to grow by only 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, down from its previous forecast of 900,000 bpd, and to increase by 700,000 bpd in 2026.
China, the world’s top oil importer, announced it will impose additional tariffs of 34 per cent on all US goods from April 10. Nations have readied retaliation after Trump raised tariffs to their highest in more than a century.
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