Nigeria's naira gained 1.1 percent against the dollar on Friday, lifted by the central bank's intervention and dollar sales by oil companies this week, which helped ease demand pressure on the local currency, dealers said.
The local unit firmed to close at 187.50 naira to the dollar following the intervention, after opening at 189.55. The naira closed at 189.10 on Thursday.
The central bank has been selling dollars since this week and intervened again on Friday to lift the naira, which is trading outside its target band of 160-176 and has hit record lows this year as the price of oil, Nigeria's main export, fell.
The bank sold an undisclosed amount of dollars to prop up the local currency, dealers said.
This week, state-oil firm NNPC sold around $350 million while Royal Dutch Shell sold an undisclosed amount of dollars, to buy naira for local use, boosting interbank dollar liquidity.
Over the last year, the central bank has burned through 20 percent of its reserves, $28 million a day, in defence of a currency that has remained under unrelenting pressure because of a basic lack of petro-dollars.
By end-January, reserves stood at $34.38 billion.
The naira hovered around 189-191 to the greenback in the past week, before oil companies sold dollars for their operations and the central bank intervened to support the local currency.
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