African Refiners and Distributors Association (ARDA) has raised concerns over continuous reliance on Europe and other continents for petroleum products, warning that a 30-day halt in fuel imports would cause severe disruption across Africa, grounding planes, immobilising trucks, and shutting down critical services.
Anticipating fuel queues stretching across Lagos, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Cairo, and Nairobi, ARDA, in a thoughts series, said the development is not a far-fetched disaster scenario but a real and present risk facing the continent if fuel imports are disrupted for just 30 days.
Despite producing more than five million barrels of crude oil each day, Africa imports over 70 per cent of its refined petroleum products.
ARDA’s Executive Secretary, Anibor Kragha, warned that this heavy dependence leaves the continent dangerously vulnerable to supply shocks with immediate and far-reaching consequences.
“If imports were to stop, the collapse wouldn’t just be technical, it would be systemic,” he said.
A halt in fuel imports would quickly paralyse key sectors. Aviation, trucking, and construction would grind to a halt, while shortages of jet fuel would isolate countries.
Millions of tonnes of goods, medicines, and food would be stranded in warehouses and ports, unable to move.
Hospitals, telecom towers, water systems, and banks, many of which depend on diesel-powered generators, would shut down.
In rural communities, clinics would lose power; in megacities, water pressure could collapse. As supply chains fracture and basic services falter, fuel shortages would trigger food inflation, power cuts, and economic paralysis, creating fertile ground for political instability.
Entire industries, such as mining in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia, would stop.
Critical exports like copper from Zambia and cobalt from the DRC, essential to the global electric vehicle supply chain, would be stranded. Ghana’s gold production would freeze, while oil rigs, vessels, and haul trucks would fall silent.
Kragha said the crisis risk was underpinned by Africa’s paradox of being resource-rich but refinery-poor.
The continent has more than 40 refineries, yet many are outdated, underutilised, or idle. Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, has a nominal refining capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day, including the new 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery, but still imports over half of its fuel needs.
Across the continent, crude production far outpaces refining, Kragha decried, adding that in the Republic of Congo, plans have been announced to double crude output to 500,000 barrels per day, but the CORAF Refinery in Pointe Noire currently processes only 24,000 barrels per day, with a planned increase to 40,000 still far below potential despite its proximity to major markets like the DRC.
Meanwhile, energy demand is rising sharply, ARDA said as the association noted that Africa’s population is expected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, with energy needs projected to double. Kragha noted that heavy reliance on imports undermines economic sovereignty, widens trade deficits, destabilises currencies, and hampers industrialisation.
It also threatens the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area by reinforcing dependence on external markets instead of building internal resilience, he stated.
Kragha stressed that energy security must become a continental priority while arguing that building refining and distribution capacity within Africa is essential to securing sustainable growth.
“Energy security isn’t a luxury, it’s a lifeline. Without energy sovereignty, there is no sustainable development,” he said.
Kragha called for urgent action to upgrade and expand refining capacity through commercially viable projects, improve infrastructure such as pipelines, depots, and storage terminals, harmonise fuel specifications to boost intra-African trade, attract investment through transparency and risk-mitigation frameworks, and build human capital in regulation, engineering, and operations.
He urged governments to cut red tape, streamline approvals, and tackle infrastructure bottlenecks that make local refining uncompetitive.
Mobilising domestic capital, including pension funds, insurance pools, and sovereign wealth funds worth over \$4 trillion, would be critical. Regulators, he said, must be empowered with autonomy and technical capacity to ensure standards and investor confidence.
Kragha also argued for breaking down internal trade barriers so that fuel, capital, and expertise can move freely across borders, adding that financial tools such as carbon credits, blended finance, and guarantee mechanisms could help scale investment and reduce risks.
Strategic fuel reserves, Kragha noted, are also vital. Many African countries hold only a few days’ worth of fuel, making them highly exposed to disruptions. National or regional stockholding frameworks, backed by reporting systems and modest levies, could significantly improve resilience without burdening consumers.
“None of this will succeed without strong political will and a unified voice from African leadership. Energy sovereignty must become a continental priority, not just for growth, but for long-term resilience and prosperity,” Kragha warned.
