West Africa Fuels Landscape

Overview

MEMAN and S&P Global Commodity Insights (Platts) convened a virtual webinar to examine how global geopolitics, changing trade flows and new regional refining capacity are reshaping West Africa’s refined products landscape. The session combined a short safety briefing and opening remarks with technical presentations on middle distillates and gasoline pricing dynamics, an explainer on the ex-Lomé offshore hub, Platts’ new regional price assessments (FOB West Africa and STS Lomé), and a timed question and answer session addressing policy, market structure and investment.

Discussions focused on the impact of the Dangote refinery commissioning, shifting export channels from Europe, the role of Lomé as a flexible trading hub, recent price shocks including a Dangote FCC outage, and methodological innovations to better reflect how material trades in the Gulf of Guinea.

Key Discussion Points

1. Safety Briefing & Opening Remarks
   The webinar opened with a safety briefing from Kingsley Ojimba, MEMAN Jetty Superintendent, covering remote event hygiene and question protocols, including chat and raise hand functions.

MEMAN Chairman, Mr. Huub Stokman framed the event as timely following Nigeria’s move to full fuel price deregulation, emphasising that rising local refining capacity changes the supply landscape and that MEMAN will support market transparency, benchmarking and coordinated stakeholder engagement during the transition.

2. Mr. Gary Clark – Current Supply, Demand, and Pricing Dynamics in Europe and West Africa

Gary Clark, Associate Editorial Director for EMEA clean refined products at S&P Global Commodity Insights, discussed gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel markets, and stressed supply resilience in the face of geopolitical disruption, including effects from Russia, Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East. He highlighted weaker European demand fundamentals such as inflation and slower growth.

Mr. Clark announced new Platts assessments for West Africa, including a low sulphur diesel FOB West Africa assessment on Lekki and Lagos basis and an STS low sulphur diesel assessment on a Togo and Lomé basis. These assessments are designed to reflect regional trading dynamics as domestic refining capacity expands. Mr. Clark noted that Dangote’s ramp up has reshaped flows, retaining much gasoil in West Africa and exporting some jet fuel internationally, which reduces but does not eliminate import dependence. He also noted that outages and maintenance can quickly reintroduce import needs and market volatility.

3. Mrs. Ogechi Nkwoji – Demystifying the Lomé Petroleum Market
   Ogechi Nkwoji presented the ex-Lomé hub as a pragmatic offshore trading solution that evolved from onshore bottlenecks and declining domestic refinery performance. Large cargoes are discharged into floating storage off Togo and sold in smaller 5 to 20 kiloton parcels to regional buyers, chiefly Nigerian marketers. Market participants were grouped as international trading houses, intermediate chartering traders and local marketers. The hub’s advantages — deep water, security, flexible lot sizes and same day trading capability — make Lomé an important reference point for price discovery and coastal distribution, and a flexible buffer during onshore disruptions.
4. Matthew Tracey-Cook – Gasoline outlook
   Matthew Tracey-Cook reviewed European gasoline trends, seasonal quality premiums for summer blends and the links between European dynamics and West African markets. He observed that crack spreads have been softer relative to the post COVID and Russia Ukraine period, driven in part by reduced transatlantic arbitrage and lower exports to West Africa following Dangote’s commissioning.

Mr. Tracey-Cook highlighted a sharp rally in gasoline cracks in August after an FCC outage at Dangote, with implied cracks moving from about thirteen dollars per barrel to above seventeen dollars per barrel. This episode underscored how Dangote outages can have outsized impacts on Atlantic basin product balances and prompt market backwardation.

5. New regional pricing mechanics: FOB West Africa and STS Lomé, market versus strip methodology
   Platts’ new assessments aim to capture traded values. The FOB West Africa assessment covers 20 to 40 kiloton cargoes loading from ports such as Lagos, while the STS Lomé assessment approximates marginal small clip values in the Lomé offshore market that feed coastal and truck distribution. These assessments are prompt focused on a three to ten day forward loading window. Swaps strips are drawn over the same loading window and compared against assessed West Africa material to produce FOB differentials, for example FOB WAF versus Mediterranean and FOB WAF versus Northwest Europe. Mr. Tracey-Cook explained that assessing West African trades against a swaps strip reduces noise relative to spot-to-spot differentials and better reflects marginal trade dynamics in the Gulf of Guinea.
6. Trade flow trends and structural implications
   Europe remains a major supplier into many West African markets but direct imports into Nigeria from Europe have declined while cargoes increasingly land in regional hubs such as Lomé and are broken into smaller parcels. Transatlantic flows to the United States were weaker in 2025 compared with 2024, contributing to softer European crack spreads, while alternative supply routes from the Middle East, the United States and India and re-routing around the Suez have altered the supply geometry. Lomé continues to grow as a flexible marginal sourcing point even as Dangote supplies large truck volumes domestically, so import dependence has shifted rather than disappeared.
7. Q&A Session
   Audience questions focused on lowering domestic pump prices, attracting investment, smuggling, the future of Lomé versus ex Lagos hubs and competitive issues arising from Dangote’s vertical integration. Panellists distinguished market pre-tax supply costs, which are driven by supply and demand and refining capacity, from fiscal and policy levers such as taxes and subsidies that governments control. They noted that subsidy removal has reduced smuggling, that consistent refining capacity and diversified supply reduce price volatility, and that attracting investment requires clear, implementable regulatory frameworks, a level playing field, security and investor confidence. The panel emphasised that multiple supply sources and market alternatives remain essential to resilience.

Conclusion & Closing remarks

MEMAN’s CEO and Executive Secretary, Mr. Clement Isong, closed the event by thanking presenters, including Mr. Gary Clark and Mr. Matthew Tracey-Cook, the media and industry attendees, and reaffirmed MEMAN’s commitment to leverage the partnership with S&P Global Commodity Insights for ongoing media education and stakeholder engagement on pricing and product flows. Moderator, Mrs. Vanessa Durojaiye thanked participants and reiterated MEMAN’s intent to continue knowledge sharing sessions that support market transparency and the downstream industry’s evolution.

Key takeaways reinforced during the close were that Dangote’s commissioning is materially reshaping regional flows but does not eliminate import dependence, that refinery outages remain major price drivers, that Lomé functions as a growing marginal hub providing flexible small clip supply and supporting price discovery, that Platts’ new regional assessments and the market versus strip methodology aim to better reflect traded values and reduce noise in published differentials, and that policy stability, transparent regulation and investor confidence are critical to attract downstream investment that will strengthen supply resilience and influence domestic prices.