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Europe, Mediterranean Crises Shouldn’t Affect Africa’s Petroleum Price Benchmark – FG
The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, has said crises in Western Europe and the Mediterranean should not automatically determine petroleum product prices in Nigeria and other African countries, arguing that West Africa needs a regional benchmark that reflects its own market realities.
It said West Africa could no longer afford a situation where disruptions in Western Europe or the Mediterranean automatically influence the prices of petroleum products in African markets, even when the factors behind those disruptions have little or nothing to do with the region.
The Authority Chief Executive, Rabiu Umar, said this on Tuesday at the second West Africa Refined Fuel Market Conference in Abuja, where regulators, refiners, traders, financiers and other industry stakeholders renewed efforts to establish a transparent regional pricing system for refined petroleum products.
The conference is jointly hosted by the Authority, S&P Global Commodity Insights and West Africa Regulator Forum, with the theme: “Funding West Africa Infrastructure & Distribution to Create a Transparent Market for Regional Price Benchmarks.”
The conference is aimed at moving the region from discussions about price discovery to the actual development of a functioning petroleum trading and pricing hub.
Umar said the continued use of external price references meant that petroleum consumers in Nigeria and other West African countries could be affected by disruptions that occurred thousands of kilometres away and were unrelated to the fundamentals of their own markets.
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He said the situation was no longer sustainable, particularly as West Africa’s refining landscape was changing rapidly and Nigeria was emerging as a major supplier of refined petroleum products to the region.
The NMDPRA boss, who also doubles as the WARF Chairman, said, “If we look at the refining capacity on the continent and how it has been increasing, it simply doesn’t make sense that if there is a problem in Western Europe or in the Mediterranean, it is going to affect our pricing in Africa.
“There may be issues which have absolutely nothing to do with what is going on here. And prices should be determined on the basis of geopolitical issues, demand and supply, and complexities within the market. So we feel this is a great opportunity for Africa, and West Africa in particular, to really have something that is specific to us. If we have a problem, it is reflected in the pricing. If we don’t have a problem, then we are to be shielded to an extent, I would say, from what is going on in other locations.”
The call comes against the backdrop of renewed volatility in international energy markets following the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important oil shipping routes. The latest tensions around the strait have pushed Brent crude sharply higher, with the benchmark reaching above $90 per barrel at points in recent days before easing as markets weighed diplomatic efforts between Iran and Oman.
That distinction, he argued, is at the heart of the campaign for a West African reference market.
He said, “If we look at the refining capacity on the continent and how it has been increasing, it simply doesn’t make sense that if there is a problem in Western Europe or in the Mediterranean, it is going to affect our pricing in Africa. There may be issues which have absolutely nothing to do with what is going on here in the continent. But prices are determined on the basis of geopolitical issues, demand and supply, and complexities within the market. So we feel this is a great opportunity for Africa, and West Africa in particular, to really have something that is specific to us.
“If we have a problem, it is reflected in the pricing. If we don’t have a problem, then we are shielded to an extent, I would say, from what is going on in other locations.”
He explained that the roadmap required reliable financing, refinery capacity, stronger logistics and storage networks, interconnected ports, roads, rail and pipelines, harmonised product regulations and standards, transparent and comparable market data, stronger cross-border cooperation and the mobilisation of regional and international capital.
“A reference price is not by itself a trading hub. A conference is not a market. Regulatory cooperation, important as it is, cannot substitute for physical infrastructure, commercial liquidity, market information, and operational excellence on which a credible trading hub must stand. Africa possesses resources. Africa possesses demand. Africa possesses refining capacity, and that is also expanding. What we must now build is the infrastructure that efficiently connects all three”, he added.
Umar also urged West African countries to stop duplicating infrastructure and instead develop assets based on their comparative advantages.
He said, “This is also why we must think regionally. Not every country needs to replicate every asset that we have. So for example, Nigeria today stands as one of the most tanked countries. If you look at the number of tanks we have versus the consumption that we have, there is absolutely no point.
“If you look at Europe, for example, our region is a trading hub for oil and gas, for all the refined products. Why? The other countries could also have invested in similar infrastructure, which would have led to duplication. The most important thing is what each country’s specific advantage is relative to the region, so that way everybody is doing what they are really, really good at. And this is why we must think regionally. We have to think regionally.”
He also identified differences in petroleum product specifications across countries as another major obstacle to cross-border trade. According to him, varying specifications make it difficult to move products seamlessly from one West African market to another and undermine the development of a single regional market.
“We also have the second issue of what is the quality of products. What is the specification of products from one country to another? We cannot have from here to Nigeria, to Ghana, to the United Republic, even our right-next-door neighbours having different products and specifications. What that does is that it makes trading across the border very, very difficult.”
Umar said regional integration would therefore help optimise existing infrastructure, reduce duplication and direct scarce capital towards projects capable of delivering the greatest regional impact.
“Capital will go where projects are bankable. Risks are understood, regulation is predictable, and returns can be sustained. Our responsibility as governments, regulators, and players is therefore to create the conditions that allow capital to move confidently. For investors, predictability matters. For operators, efficiency matters. For consumers, affordability matters, and reliability. For regulators, safety, integrity, competition, and compliance matter. A sustainable market must accommodate all four”, he stated.
The NMDPRA boss further identified reliable market data as a critical requirement for credible regional price discovery.
He said a benchmark could not be trusted if it was based on an opaque market with limited transactions and unreliable information on supply, demand, inventories and product availability.
“A credible benchmark cannot emerge from an opaque market. Price discovery requires sufficient transactions, willing participants, reliable reporting, and confidence that market information indeed reflects actual commercial activity.
“We must therefore develop a culture in which reliable information on supply, demand, inventories, infrastructure, availability, and legitimate transactions can support better commercial decisions and effective regulation.”
He said the West Africa Regulators Forum had a major role to play in creating an environment where different national markets could operate with sufficient regulatory compatibility to facilitate cross-border trade.
“We do not need every country to have identical laws. We need sufficient compatibility to allow trade to occur safely, transparently, and efficiently. And this is the difference, really, between regulatory uniformity and regulatory integration.”
Umar said the regional roadmap beyond 2026 would focus on five key areas, including improving physical market mobility, financing strategic infrastructure, optimising product standards and regulations, strengthening market data and transparency, and building a complete trading ecosystem.
He said a mature regional market would require refiners, traders, terminal operators, ship owners, marketers, banks, insurers, commodity exchanges, data providers and regulators to operate within an environment of commercial trust.
“And when these elements come together, the benchmarks will learn to be imposed. The market itself will produce the benchmark,” he said.
He said the ultimate objective was to transform West Africa from a region that largely consumes petroleum products priced elsewhere into an increasingly influential centre of price discovery, trading, investment and value creation.
“In 2025, we developed the roadmap. In 2026, we must finance and execute it. In the years ahead, our major success must be a West African market in which products move more efficiently, supply is more secure, investors have greater confidence, regional trade expands, and prices increasingly reflect the fundamentals of our own markets.”
Courtesy – The Punch
Nigeria recorded the largest increase in the number of people experiencing multidimensional poverty among five countries that registered increases over their latest measurement periods, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The finding was contained in the 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index report, released on Monday by the UNDP and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
According to the report, Nigeria’s multidimensional poverty rate rose from 33 per cent in 2021 to 38.7 per cent in 2024, representing an increase of 5.7 percentage points.
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The number of Nigerians living in multidimensional poverty increased from 72.2 million in 2021 to 90.1 million in 2024, leaving an additional 17.9 million people affected.
The report noted that the latest increase reversed the progress Nigeria recorded between 2018 and 2021, when the proportion of people living in multidimensional poverty declined.
Nigeria’s Multidimensional Poverty Index value also increased from 0.175 in 2021 to 0.208 in 2024, reflecting a rise in both the incidence and intensity of deprivation.
The intensity of deprivation among multidimensionally poor Nigerians increased from 52.9 per cent to 53.6 per cent over the same period.
Unlike income-based poverty measures, which assess poverty based on how much people earn or spend, the Multidimensional Poverty Index examines overlapping disadvantages experienced in daily life.
The index measures deprivation across three dimensions: health, education and standard of living.
Its 10 indicators include nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing and household assets.
A person is classified as multidimensionally poor when their household experiences deprivation in at least one-third of the weighted indicators.
The report showed that Nigeria had made progress in reducing multidimensional poverty before the latest increase.
The country’s index value declined from 0.230 in 2013 to 0.202 in 2018 and 0.175 in 2021 before rising to 0.208 in 2024.
Similarly, the proportion of Nigerians living in multidimensional poverty fell from 42.3 per cent in 2013 to 37.2 per cent in 2018 and 33 per cent in 2021 before increasing to 38.7 per cent in 2024.
The number of affected Nigerians also declined from 76.3 million in 2018 to 72.2 million in 2021 before climbing to 90.1 million in 2024.
The report further highlighted significant differences in multidimensional poverty across Nigeria’s subnational regions, with incidence ranging from 3.7 per cent to 88.3 per cent across the regions covered by the analysis.
It compared Yobe and Sokoto, two of Nigeria’s poorest subnational regions with similar Multidimensional Poverty Index values, to illustrate how the forms of deprivation experienced by communities can differ despite comparable overall poverty levels.
Globally, the report estimated that 1.2 billion people across 108 countries lived in acute multidimensional poverty.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 616 million people living in multidimensional poverty, while South Asia followed with 393 million.
The report also found that 83.3 per cent of the world’s multidimensionally poor population, equivalent to approximately 998 million people, lived in rural areas, compared with 200 million in urban areas.
Children below the age of 18 accounted for 617 million, or 51.5 per cent, of the world’s multidimensionally poor population.
In sub-Saharan Africa, 355 million children lived in multidimensional poverty, accounting for 57.7 per cent of the region’s poor population.
In a bold move to deepen retail participation in Nigeria’s capital market, the Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF) has unveiled a share grant initiative aimed at helping up to five million tertiary students and two million vulnerable women become shareholders in Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals (DPRP) through its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ADF, Zouera Youssoufou, disclosed that the Foundation will match qualifying share subscriptions by eligible beneficiaries. Under the programme, students who subscribe for the minimum 10 shares worth N5,250 will receive an additional 10 shares funded by the Foundation, subject to the approved process and allocation, effectively doubling their holdings to 20 shares.
Speaking during a television interview, Youssoufou said the initiative was designed to turn the refinery’s “People’s IPO” vision into reality by giving traditionally underserved groups a direct stake in one of Africa’s largest industrial assets.
“When Aliko announced the IPO, he described it as the IPO of the people and wanted as many Nigerians as possible to participate,” she said.
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According to her, students and vulnerable women were specifically selected because they have historically been underrepresented in the capital market.
The ADF said it is prepared to support up to five million students enrolled in Nigerian tertiary institutions, including universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. Eligible applicants must be at least 18 years old and enrolled in a recognised institution. The Foundation is working with relevant educational authorities to verify beneficiaries.
Youssoufou revealed that about N25 billion has been earmarked for the student component of the scheme, while the broader programme for students and vulnerable women is valued at approximately N40 billion.
She emphasised that the intervention is a grant, not an investment, with all shares ultimately belonging to the beneficiaries.
“The shares end up with the beneficiary. Our goal is to help people who may never have had the opportunity to own shares begin building long-term wealth,” she said.
Beyond students, ADF plans to support up to two million vulnerable women, including widows, women living in extreme poverty, persons with disabilities, and widows of members of the Armed Forces. The Foundation is partnering with state governments, the Ministry of Women Affairs, the Armed Forces and other institutions to identify eligible participants.
According to Youssoufou, the initiative is not only about widening ownership in the refinery but also about promoting financial literacy, encouraging a culture of savings and investment, and helping Nigerians build sustainable wealth through participation in the capital market.
Nigeria’s efforts to increase production and curb crude oil theft still leaves her short of meeting the demands of the 700,000 barrels demand of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals (DPRP).
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, made the disclosure during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today at the weekend.
The disclosure comes amid renewed debate over government intervention in the petroleum market, with proposals for production subsidies, the 30-days petrol discount and other measures to support domestic refining and reduce the cost of petroleum products.
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He explained that Nigeria’s total crude oil production does not translate into an equivalent volume available for allocation by the government.
Oyedele said Nigeria’s crude oil production of about 1.8 million barrels per day was shared among parties operating under production-sharing contracts and joint ventures, while production costs, royalties and other obligations further reduced the volume available to the government.
“Under the production-sharing contract and joint venture, they share these things, and the ratios vary. Let’s say roughly 45:55,” he said.
He explained that oil producers first recover eligible production costs through cost oil, while royalties and contractual sharing arrangements also determine the quantity ultimately accruing to the government.
“The long and short of what I’m telling you is whatever is left for Nigeria, we exhaust it almost entirely because of fuel subsidy,” he said.
According to the minister, the situation was particularly severe before President Bola Tinubu introduced the economic reforms in May 2023, when the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), which holds the country’s crude on its behalf, had less than 100,000 barrels of freely available crude remaining.
He said the government had exhausted much of its revenue and resorted to printing money before turning to future crude oil production to secure commitments used to finance present consumption.
“That was a ticking time bomb,” Oyedele said, describing the arrangement under which future oil production was committed to support current fuel consumption.
The minister, however, acknowledged improvements following increased production, efforts to reduce crude oil theft and the renegotiation of some existing commitments that had tied down the country’s crude.
He cited comments by business leader Tony Elumelu, who had previously expressed frustration over the scale of crude oil theft in Nigeria, and subsequently reported an improvement in the situation.
Despite these gains, Oyedele said the country was yet to attain the level of freely available crude required to supply the Dangote refinery with its full daily requirement.
“But we are still not at the point where we can give Dangote 700,000 barrels,” he said.
The minister dismissed proposals for the government to supply the refinery with discounted crude or at production cost, arguing that such proposals failed to recognise the constraints on the volume of oil available for allocation.
“We don’t have enough to service Dangote. Dangote imports crude,” he said.
He added that the naira-for-crude arrangement introduced by the Federal Government had helped provide some stability but had not eliminated the supply constraints.
According to him, sustained increases in crude oil production and the release of additional barrels from existing commitments would eventually enable Nigeria to meet the requirements of Dangote and other domestic refiners.
“As we ramp up production and we free up some barrels, we’ll get to a point where we’ll be able to give Dangote everything he wants and other refiners will be able to get enough,” he said.
Oyedele also expressed hope that Nigeria would eventually refine all the crude oil it produces domestically and export refined petroleum products rather than crude.
The disclosure comes amid renewed debate over government intervention in the petroleum market, with proposals for production subsidies and other measures to support domestic refining and reduce the cost of petroleum products.
Oyedele further maintained that achieving that ambition will depend not only on the expansion of refining capacity but also on sustained growth in crude oil production and the availability of additional volumes for domestic processing.
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