Pricele #56: Diesel (1 litre) in Nigeria 🇳🇬
The puzzle for 25 August 2026 asked what a litre of diesel costs in Nigeria. Here is the answer and the context behind it.
The answer
Diesel (1 litre) · Nigeria
$1.23
1,662.5 NGN
About 3.3 hours of the average local wage buys a litre of diesel.
Cheaper than 73% of the 49 countries in the game.
Source: GlobalPetrolPrices.com, 17-Aug-2026.
About diesel
Diesel and petrol leave the same refinery, so the gap between them in any country is almost entirely tax. Much of Europe spent decades taxing diesel more lightly than petrol to favour freight and diesel cars, and has been closing that gap since 2015. Elsewhere the ordering flips: plenty of countries price diesel above petrol because it is the fuel of business rather than of voters.
Where Nigeria sits
Of the 49 countries priced for diesel, Nigeria ranks #37 from the top at $1.23, 21% below the median of $1.55.
No country in this table has been repriced as violently in the last three years. The naira was floated in 2023 and the petrol subsidy removed in the same year, which multiplied the pump price several times over and reset almost every other price behind it. A Nigerian dollar figure is therefore a statement about the exchange rate at least as much as about a Nigerian shop. VAT is 7.5%, among the lowest anywhere and applied with a defined list of zero-rated basic foods, so the state is not what makes anything here expensive.
What else costs what in Nigeria
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity (100 kWh) | $3.80 | 5,082.3 NGN | 10.3 h |
| Cigarettes (20-pack) | $0.50 | 800 NGN | 81 min |
| Beer (330ml) | $0.35 | 550 NGN | 57 min |
| Spirits (750ml bottle) | $3.97 | 6,321.43 NGN | 10.7 h |
| Mobile data (1 GB) | $0.39 | — | 63 min |
| A day's healthy diet | $1.00 | 1,512.6 NGN | 2.7 h |
Go deeper
See the full table for diesel in every country or everything priced in Nigeria.