More U.S. crude oil found a home in Africa last week than any time since 2023, despite trade tensions and tariff disputes.
Of the 26.5 MMbbl of crude oil exported from the Gulf Coast last week, 2.8 MMbbl was shipped to Africa (far-right bar in chart below). This was the highest weekly volume since 2023, which we discussed in the Crude Voyager report. Two-thirds of the oil sent to Africa went to the Dangote Refinery in Lekki, Nigeria.
If you asked someone where U.S. crude oil shipments would go when the Obama administration ended the ban on most crude exports in December 2015, it’s not likely that Nigeria would have come to mind. Yet this year marked the second time since the restrictions ended that U.S. oil has been sent to the OPEC member, this time to feed its long-awaited Dangote refinery. In today’s RBN blog, we will examine this development and the prospects for more U.S. exports to the West African nation.
The new 650-Mb/d Dangote refinery in Nigeria instantly became Africa’s largest and the world’s seventh-largest by capacity when it finally began processing crude into diesel and aviation fuels in January after years of delays and cost overruns. Long touted as Nigeria’s ticket to ending refined fuels imports by supplying its own markets — with plenty to spare for exports — the Dangote facility could substantially impact trade flows and global supply if it lives up to years of homegrown ballyhoo. In today’s RBN blog, we will examine Dangote’s long road to production, and why we see a slow ramp-up to full capacity through 2026.
The trade war between the U.S. and China continues to intensify — and now the rhetoric is shifting from steel and soybeans to oil and gas. What started as just an exchange of escalating bluster has developed into real tariffs that will be enacted beginning August 23 — which will include petroleum-based products like LPG and refined products. The commodities that would have the biggest impacts on global trade flows, liquefied natural gas and crude oil, were under tariff threat as well. LNG is still on a list of potential commodities to receive tariffs in the future, while crude has since been removed. But, keep in mind that today’s state of affairs could change tomorrow, so tariffs on those two commodities should be considered very much on the table. Today, we examine the potential trade war fallout for growing exports of U.S. LNG and crude oil.
