Senegal’s attempt to diversify its fuel supply by turning to Nigerian crude is bumping up against hard facts on the ground. Analyst Kpler's data show that Dakar’s 30 kbl/d Société Africaine de Raffinage (SAR) has run steadily on Nigeria’s light-sweet Erha crude (36° API, 0.2 % S) for most of 2024–25—a logical intra-African flow.

While the refinery operates on Nigerian oil, Senegal still imports 80–100 kbl/d of finished products—gasoil, diesel, fuel oil, and gasoline—to maintain market supply, and industry trackers estimate that half or more of these products originate in Russia. The result is a lopsided supply chain: African crude in the front door, Russian middle distillates in the back.

That dependence is becoming a strategic risk. European Union sanctions on Russian oil are tightening in quarterly increments; the following review, due in early 2026, could raise freight and insurance costs or even bar some vessels from coverage. Because West African discharge ports rely almost entirely on European insurers, any embargo-related premium feeds straight into Dakar’s import bill.

Traders already quote Russian gasoil delivered to Dakar at a higher premium to the Mediterranean spot. This spread is likely to widen if sanctions tighten or more barrels are moved onto the shadow fleet. With products accounting for roughly two-thirds of national consumption, the country is exposed to a sanctions shock that it can do little to soften.

The bottleneck is baked into the refinery itself. SAR was built in 1965 for light, low-sulfur crude and has never been upgraded; its vacuum column and desulfurization units cannot handle the 31° API, 1% sulfur stream that comes from Senegal’s own Sangomar field. Output from Sangomar reached its nameplate capacity of 100 kbl/d in July 2024; however, every barrel is loaded onto tankers bound for Spain, Italy, or the Netherlands because the local plant cannot process anything heavier than 35° API without a costly revamp. 

Nigeria’s Erha stream is therefore a stopgap, not a solution. The grade is attractive because it is light, sweet, and usually available in the spot market; however, it still has to be purchased with hard currency at export parity prices. Nigerian official selling prices for Erha have averaged $2.50–3.00/bbl above dated Brent so far in 2025, and the cargo route from Escravos to Dakar adds another $1.50/bbl in freight. That means Senegal is paying global prices for African crude while simultaneously absorbing whatever risk premium is attached to Russian products—hardly the diversified, resilient supply base policymakers had in mind.

The arithmetic is unlikely to change soon. SAR’s throughput has declined from 24 kbl/d in 2017 to barely 17 kbl/d last year, and routine maintenance outages can reduce that figure by half. Even at full capacity, SAR would meet scarcely a third of Senegal’s fuel demand, leaving Dakar at the mercy of the same external suppliers—and the same sanction-related price spikes—that it hoped to escape by looking west to Nigeria. Intra-African trade is a first step, but without refinery reconfiguration or new inland storage, Senegal’s Nigerian option remains a fragile bridge rather than a durable escape route from import dependence.

Idriss Linge