• Nigeria bans raw shea nut exports for six months

• Policy aims to boost local processing, $300M annual revenue

• Joins West African trend reshaping global shea butter market
  

Nigeria has banned the export of raw shea nuts for the next six months, effective August 27, 2025. The announcement was made in a government statement, which specified that the prohibition is intended to strengthen the domestic shea value chain and will be reviewed upon its expiration.

Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima said the policy is designed to boost value addition, secure raw material supplies for local processing plants, and allow related industries to operate at full capacity.

According to official data, the local industry uses less than 50% of its installed processing capacity of 160,000 tons. "Nigeria produces nearly 40% of the global shea product, yet we account for only 1% of the market share of $6.5 billion. This is unacceptable," the Vice President said. "We are projected to earn about $300 million annually in the short term, and by 2027, there will be a 10-fold increase. This is our target."

Growing Sub-Regional Trend

With this announcement, Nigeria joins a sub-regional trend that has seen five other West African producing countries suspend or restrict raw shea exports since last year.

After Burkina Faso in September 2024 and Mali a month later, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo also decided to suspend shipments of shea nuts in January and April 2025, respectively. Less radical than its neighbors, Ghana decided in July 2025 to implement a progressive blockade on raw material exports by 2026.

These decisions, whether coordinated or not, are beginning to reshape the oilseed value chain in the sub-region. They reflect a desire by producing countries to capture a more significant share of the global shea butter market, which is the main product derived from processed nuts.

According to research firm Grand View Research, the global shea butter market was valued at an estimated $2.41 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 7.9% to reach $3.74 billion by 2030, driven by increasing demand from the cosmetics and food industries.

Beyond its goal of creating more value in the shea sector, Abuja also presents the export ban as a way to curb informal trade, which affects the availability of the raw material on the domestic market. Official data indicate that Nigeria’s shea nut harvest is approximately 350,000 tons per year, though the country's potential is estimated at nearly 900,000 tons.

Stéphanas Assocle