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 thought 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.
It said that 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. He noted that 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.
He pointed out that millions of tonnes of goods, medicines and food would be stranded in warehouses and ports, unable to move, while hospitals, telecom towers, water systems and banks, many of which depend on diesel-powered generators, would shut down.
He said: “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The continent has more than 40 refineries, yet many are outdated, underutilised or idle.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.