West Africa is stepping up efforts to develop its own petroleum pricing benchmark, as rising refining capacity led by Nigeria’s Dangote refinery begins to reshape a fuel market that has long depended on imports and price signals from outside the continent.
The push could mark another shift in the region’s petroleum trade. West Africa has historically exported crude oil while importing large volumes of refined products, leaving fuel prices heavily influenced by established trading centres in Europe and elsewhere.
The Dangote refinery is helping drive ambitions to turn West Africa into a fuel trading hub, as its growing output changes supply patterns across the region.
But Nigerian policymakers are pushing the ambition further, they want more of the region’s fuel to eventually be priced where it is produced and consumed.
“Our ambition should be that a product refined in West Africa should not have to leave West Africa before the market can credibly determine its value,” Olu Verheijen, special adviser on energy to President Bola Tinubu, said at the West Africa Refined Fuel Market Conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
