Business
GHOST BERTHS AND EMPTY DEPOTS: HOW THE DANGOTE REFINERY AND FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL ARE RESHAPING NIGERIA’S ECONOMY — AND DEVASTATING THE DOWNSTREAM SECTOR
GHOST BERTHS AND EMPTY DEPOTS: HOW THE DANGOTE REFINERY AND FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL ARE RESHAPING NIGERIA’S ECONOMY — AND DEVASTATING THE DOWNSTREAM SECTOR
By Oghenewoke Onoriode| Maritime & Energy Correspondent | March 15, 2026
THE VIEW FROM THE CREEK
A boat tour along the Lagos creeks and lagoon this week paints a picture few government economists would want to acknowledge. The berths that once teemed with product tankers — vessels loaded with imported petroleum offloading into an armada of tank farms along Creek Road, Kirikiri, Apapa and the Ojo waterfront — now sit idle. The vessels are gone. The jetties, quiet. And in what may be the most dramatic commercial signal yet, dozens of tank farms that once formed the backbone of Nigeria’s petroleum distribution value chain are now listed for sale.
This is the new reality of Nigeria’s downstream sector — a sector caught between two seismic forces: the removal of the fuel subsidy in May 2023 and the full ramping up of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
THE REFINERY: AN INDUSTRIAL COLOSSUS WITH A DISRUPTIVE WAKE
The Dangote Refinery, located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, finally reached full operational capacity of 650,000 barrels per day — the world’s largest single-train refinery — marking an important milestone in Nigeria’s efforts to cut reliance on imported fuel. By January 2026, it was supplying 62% of the country’s Premium Motor Spirit, overtaking fuel importers for the first time in the country’s history.
Projections indicate the country could save up to $10 billion annually in foreign exchange previously spent on fuel imports, with petrol imports falling by more than 54% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 as local supply increased. Beyond the domestic market, diesel and jet fuel shipments have reached Ghana, Togo, and Cameroon, positioning the facility as a regional export hub.
But every revolution has its casualties, and the casualties along the Lagos waterway are visible and verifiable.
TANK FARMS FOR SALE: THE EVIDENCE ON THE WATER
The evidence is not anecdotal. It is documented in hard numbers, in regulatory data, and in property listings that any journalist can verify today.
No fewer than 70 tank farm owners have been compelled to cease operations, leaving their facilities abandoned and idle as retailers and station owners increasingly bypass the storage facilities. These dormant farms represent 65% of the total 120 approved facilities, with operators turning to alternative trucking options instead.
On Nigeria Property Centre alone, 48 tank farm properties are currently listed for sale, with facilities in Kirikiri, Dockyard Apapa, and surrounding maritime zones — some priced at ₦18 billion each — offering private jetties, multiple loading gantries and Certificate of Occupancy titles. These are not speculative land plots. They are fully operational, licensed petroleum storage facilities now without a buyer.
The business closure was primarily driven by the removal of the fuel subsidy, which led to a 488% increase in petrol prices, affecting the purchasing power of fuel marketers and fundamentally changing the economics of tank farm operations.
AN INDUSTRY BUILT ON IMPORTS — NOW STRANDED
The import data tells the full story of why the berths are empty. Bloomberg, citing data from analytics firm Vortexa Ltd., reported that fuel shipments into Nigeria stood at approximately 110,000 barrels per day in the first weeks of 2025 — the lowest since 2017, when imports regularly exceeded 200,000 barrels per day and sometimes reached 400,000 bpd.
By early 2026, the collapse had deepened further. Shipping data from Kpler showed petrol imports into Nigeria fell by more than half in February 2026 to around 50,000 barrels per day — a drop of nearly two-thirds compared with the same period the previous year.
As CORAN, the Coalition of Refineries and Associated Industries, noted in January 2026, Nigeria’s downstream sector for much of the past 30 years was shaped by an import-led trading model — one where fuel importation became profitable due to price differences, access to foreign exchange, and subsidy reimbursement systems, with no reinvestment into refining capacity. That model is now obsolete.
The diagnosis from industry insiders is frank. Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho, Chairman/CEO of Integrated Oil & Gas and CEO of Genesis Shipping, warned that “Job losses and slump in investment is bound to happen if tank farm owners are no longer being able to sell.”
He did not mince words on the scale of disruption: “What is happening currently in the downstream sector is something we have never seen before. It’s a complete emasculation of a class of business people.”
THE SUBSIDY REMOVAL: THE ACCELERANT
Layered onto this structural disruption is the shock of fuel subsidy removal. On May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu declared in his inaugural speech that the subsidy was gone. The result was a petrol price hike of nearly 488% in Africa’s largest oil producer by October 2024, with electricity costs also rising multifold because more than 58% of Nigerian households — off the national grid — rely on petrol and diesel generators.
Research presented at a stakeholders’ dialogue in Abuja by Mohammed Shuaibu of the University of Abuja found that poverty rose from a baseline of about 50% to 63% after subsidy removal, before moderating slightly to 56.2% when limited cash transfers were introduced. The national poverty gap — measuring the depth of poverty — also widened from 31.6% to over 45%, meaning many poor households became even poorer.
The human sentiment data from Afrobarometer’s March 2025 national survey is equally stark. More than nine in ten Nigerians (93%) say the country is going in the wrong direction. Nearly nine in ten (88%) describe the country’s economic condition as “fairly bad” or “very bad.” Three-fourths report poor personal living conditions, and 95% say they or someone in their household went without a cash income at least once during the previous year. A large majority — 85% — disapprove of the government’s decision to remove the fuel subsidy, and 58% say it should be reinstated even at the cost of reductions in health or education spending.
A TALE OF TWO ECONOMIES
The paradox is glaring. At the macro level, Nigeria is being celebrated. The refinery is generating foreign exchange, stabilising the naira, and exporting fuel to markets from West Africa to the United States. At the micro level, millions of Nigerians cannot afford to eat. The World Bank projects 139 million Nigerians will be living in poverty by the end of 2025 — a nearly 60% increase from 87 million in 2023.
A 2024 Afrobarometer survey found that 62% of Nigerians believe the removal of the petrol subsidy has worsened their living conditions, while only 18% think the savings are being used effectively.
Meanwhile, along the Lagos waterways, the human cost of creative destruction is written in rusting jetties and “For Sale” signs on facilities that once employed dockhands, surveyors, product inspectors, clearing agents, vessel operators, and thousands more in ancillary maritime services.
MONOPOLY CONCERNS IN THE DOWNSTREAM
The restructuring has also raised legitimate concerns about market concentration. An operator who sought anonymity expressed concern over the direction of the sector: “The NMDPRA has not issued any licence for petrol imports this year. Dangote is gradually enjoying a monopoly in the downstream, and we all know that this is not healthy for any sector.”
The NMDPRA noted that a sharp reduction in imports caused overall fuel supply to decline significantly in February 2026, recording a drop of 25.4 million litres per day due to the sudden fall in imports — suggesting the market may not yet be ready for a single-source supply model.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
Aliko Dangote has initiated plans to expand the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day, which would further consolidate the facility’s dominance over Nigeria’s fuel supply chain.
Industry voices are increasingly proposing a structural separation of functions: the Dangote Refinery should refine and sell through ships to tank farm owners, who in turn distribute to retail outlets by truck — preserving the role of existing storage infrastructure. Without such a framework, the emptying of Lagos’s berths is likely to continue.
For now, as one moves through the Lagos creeks and lagoons, the answer blowing in from the idle berths is unambiguous: the transformation of Nigeria’s energy economy is real, historic, and irreversible — but for the workers, marketers, and investors built on the import model, no managed transition plan yet exists.
AS SAUDI TANKERS DITCH RED SEA FOR AFRICA ROUTE, NIGERIA IS MISSING FROM THE MAP
By Oghenewoke Osaweren | Waterways News
Six Saudi supertankers turned their backs on the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint this week, setting a course around the entire African continent rather than risk the Houthi-threatened waters of the Red Sea. The vessels are heading toward Gibraltar and South Africa’s Durban and Algoa Bay ports as waypoints on their unusual cross-continental journey. All six had loaded no cargo and turned away from Bab el-Mandeb after Houthi attacks on Saudi-linked shipping pushed Riyadh to reroute crude exports through Egypt instead.
It is a story that has run in Bloomberg, Reuters and half a dozen shipping trade outlets already, told mostly from the bridge of the tanker and the trading desks of Riyadh and London. What almost none of them ask is the question that matters most from Lagos: as six more supertankers join a growing armada now circling Africa’s coastline every month, why is Nigeria still standing outside looking in?
A DETOUR THAT IS BECOMING THE ROUTE
This is no longer a short-term scramble. Cape Town alone has seen a 112 percent surge in vessel traffic as the southern route hardens from an emergency workaround into what analysts now call a structural feature of global shipping. A single VLCC or large container ship now absorbs between $400,000 and $800,000 in extra bunker costs per voyage just to make the longer trip. That is money looking for somewhere on the African coast to land.
South Africa’s own commentators have begun asking why the country is watching billions of dollars in shipping activity sail past its shores while the fuel, repair, warehousing and crew-change business goes elsewhere. Namibia is expanding Walvis Bay, Kenya is pushing Lamu Port, and even Togo has moved to turn the Port of Lomé into a bunkering and transshipment hub, while South Africa’s own bunker volumes fell from roughly 130,000 tonnes a month to about 80,000. Mauritius nearly doubled its bunker fuel sales at Port Louis to a record 929,043 metric tons in 2024, up from 509,837 tons the year before, as regulatory friction pushed business away from South Africa.
Nigeria appears nowhere in that list of contenders despite being the continent’s largest crude producer, sitting directly along the Atlantic leg of the same route these tankers must sail to reach Gibraltar and the Mediterranean.
THE COAST NIGERIA IS NOT SELLING
Every vessel diverted around Africa eventually has to pass along West Africa’s flank on its way north. That ought to be an opportunity for Nigerian ports, bunkering, ship supply, crew changes and repair contracts to have the same economic multiplier effect that analysts say is now reshaping port economies from Cape Town to Lomé. Instead, the conversation happening in Abuja, at NIMASA, and inside Nigeria’s port authorities has been almost entirely absent from the continental race to capture this windfall.
The silence is not free. The Gulf of Guinea already accounted for 92 percent of all crew kidnappings worldwide in 2025, with the number of crew taken hostage rising from 12 in 2024 to 23. Niger Delta-based pirate networks have shown growing operational sophistication and a readiness to use violence to secure ransom, with oil tankers and offshore support vessels remaining their primary targets. As more traffic funnels past Nigerian waters on the long haul to Europe, that threat does not shrink — it grows, and it grows against a security posture that has not visibly scaled to match it.
GOVERNANCE, NOT GEOGRAPHY, IS THE GAP
Industry voices in South Africa have already diagnosed their own version of this failure in stark terms, is insisting the issue is not geography but execution: infrastructure, regulation, and the will to compete for business that is, quite literally, passing offshore. Where shipping lines seek alternatives to traditional routes, that opens opportunities for local ports, logistics operators, ship repair facilities, bunkering providers and maritime security operators to grow.
That same test now sits in front of Nigeria. The Saudi tankers steaming past this week are not a one-off curiosity. They are six more data points in a shift that has already rewritten shipping economics for the whole continent. The trip round Africa adds roughly ten days and demands more fuel and crew time, driving up costs for every operator making the journey. Every one of those extra days is revenue waiting for a coastline willing to organize itself to collect it, a test Nigeria’s maritime institutions have yet to show up for.
Blue Economy
Lekki Port Lands HMM-ONE Alliance Service, Boosts Nigeria’s Direct Global Shipping Links
Lekki Port Lands HMM-ONE Alliance Service, Boosts Nigeria’s Direct Global Shipping Links
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
Lekki Deep Sea Port has notched another milestone in its bid to establish itself as West Africa’s premier maritime gateway, welcoming the maiden call of a new joint container service operated by Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) and Ocean Network Express (ONE).
The port received the inaugural vessel under the newly launched Mediterranean West Africa Service (MA2) on Saturday, July 25, 2026, adding another direct link between the Nigerian deep seaport and major hubs across Europe and West Africa.
Port management says the new rotation should translate into more frequent direct vessel calls, quicker cargo evacuation, and a stronger competitive position for Nigeria in regional and international trade.
Lekki Port Managing Director Wang Qiang called the maiden call a strong vote of confidence in the facility’s infrastructure and operational efficiency, noting that international carriers’ willingness to route through Lekki reflects growing trust in the port’s capacity to handle major liner traffic.
He said the addition to the MA2 rotation opens up new trade opportunities for shippers and reinforces Lekki’s ambition of becoming West Africa’s leading logistics gateway.
Industry watchers expect the service to give Nigerian importers and exporters more scheduling flexibility and more predictable transit times, while easing some of the bottlenecks that have historically dogged cargo movement between Nigeria and European markets. Manufacturers and agricultural exporters in particular stand to benefit from steadier access to overseas buyers through a regular liner rotation.
Since opening for commercial business, Lekki Deep Sea Port has drawn a growing roster of global shipping lines, banking on its deep draught, modern handling equipment, and faster turnaround times to differentiate itself from Nigeria’s older, more congested terminals.
Nigeria Watch
The HMM-ONE call is worth reading against the backdrop of what Lekki was built to fix. For decades, Nigerian cargo bound for Europe routed through transshipment hubs like Tema, Cotonou, or even ports further afield, adding cost, time, and risk that Apapa and Tin Can Island’s chronic gridlock only made worse. A direct alliance service naming Lekki in its West Africa rotation is a signal that at least one deep seaport in the country can compete on draught, turnaround, and predictability, all terms that matter to carriers.
But one alliance call does not settle the larger argument. Nigeria’s port sector still carries structural drag, the NPA’s stalled $1 billion modernisation ambitions for the older Lagos terminals, unresolved concession renewal anxieties among existing operators, and an Electronic Call-Up System that has yet to fully tame the Apapa corridor. If Lekki’s gains simply widen the gap with legacy terminals rather than pulling the whole system up, the win will be lopsided, one gateway thriving while NPA-controlled ports continue to bleed time and money to congestion.
There is a policy question the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy and NIMASA need to keep asking. Is Nigeria converting improved shipping access into real export growth, or just cheaper imports?
A liner service is only as valuable as what moves through it in both directions. Unless agricultural and manufactured exporters actually scale up shipments through Lekki, the “improved global connectivity” story risks being another headline that doesn’t reach the balance of trade.
Business
Lagos Ports Choke Point: NPA Logs 16 Ships Waiting to Berth, Braces for 28 More Arrivals in Five Days
Lagos Ports Choke Point: NPA Logs 16 Ships Waiting to Berth, Braces for 28 More Arrivals in Five Days
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
Nigeria’s Lagos ports are staring down another week of heavy vessel traffic, as the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) confirmed that 16 ships are currently anchored off Lekki Deep Sea Port, Tin Can Island Port and Apapa Port awaiting berthing space, with 28 additional vessels expected to arrive between July 22 and July 26. The disclosure was contained in the NPA’s daily Shipping Position released on Wednesday in Lagos, a routine bulletin that nonetheless offers a revealing snapshot of just how dependent Nigeria’s busiest port complex remains on imported fuel, food and industrial raw materials.
According to the authority, the vessels currently waiting to discharge are carrying a mixed manifest of petrol, aviation fuel and diesel alongside bulk wheat, bulk fertiliser, bulk urea and bulk sugar, plus general cargo. It is a cargo profile that has become familiar at Nigerian ports: fuel and food, arriving in near-equal measure, queued up behind one another for scarce berthing windows.
The pressure is not expected to ease soon. The NPA said the 28 vessels billed to arrive over the coming days are loaded with bulk wheat, containerised cargo, fresh fish, petrol, trucks, fuel oil, diesel, crude oil, aviation fuel and general cargo, a schedule that, added to the ships already waiting, will keep berths at Apapa, Tin Can and Lekki under sustained strain through the weekend.
Meanwhile, port operations have not stalled. The authority reported that 21 ships are actively discharging cargo across the three terminals, offloading containers, petrol, aviation fuel, crude oil, bulk fertiliser, bulk gypsum, gas, diesel, bulk wheat, bulk sugar, bulk urea, fresh fish, general cargo and base oil, evidence that, congestion notwithstanding, throughput at Nigeria’s premier gateway ports continues at pace.
Perhaps the most striking element of the report is what it says about Nigeria’s fuel import dependence. Despite the ramp-up in domestic refining capacity since the Dangote Petroleum Refinery came on stream, a significant share of the vessels at anchor or inbound are still laden with premium motor spirit, automotive gas oil, aviation fuel and fuel oil. It is a reminder that local refining, however much ground it has gained, has not yet closed the gap between what Nigeria produces and what it consumes at the pump.
Taken together, the numbers point to a port system running close to capacity, fuel tankers, bulk carriers and container ships jostling for a limited number of berths, even as crude oil exports and refined product imports continue to move in parallel through the same gateway.
Nigeria Watch
For a country whose ports serve as the primary conduit for both its oil export earnings and its fuel security, a queue of 16 ships waiting to berth, with 28 more converging on Lagos within days, is not merely a logistics footnote. It is a live pressure test of infrastructure that has long struggled to keep pace with cargo volumes at Apapa and Tin Can Island in particular, both of which remain hemmed in by shallow drafts, ageing quay aprons and access-road gridlock that regularly spills into the Apapa-Oshodi corridor.
The persistence of large petrol, diesel and aviation fuel cargoes on the manifest, well over a year after Dangote Refinery began supplying the domestic market, is the detail industry watchers should sit with longest. It suggests that the substitution of imported refined products with local output remains partial, and that Nigeria’s downstream fuel security still rests substantially on seaborne imports arriving through Lagos. That dependence carries fresh weight given the unfolding Strait of Hormuz crisis, where rising war risk insurance premiums, seafarer deployment restrictions from source countries like India and the Philippines, and tighter tanker availability are already pushing up freight costs on routes serving West Africa. Any prolongation of that crisis would be felt first at berths exactly like these, where PMS and AGO cargoes queue for discharge.
There is also a capacity argument buried in this traffic report that reinforces the case for Lekki Deep Sea Port to absorb a larger share of Lagos-bound cargo, easing pressure on the constrained, decades-old infrastructure at Apapa and Tin Can. With concession renewal talks at both older terminals still unresolved, and the Nigerian Ports Authority yet to deliver the kind of berth-productivity gains that would meaningfully cut turnaround times, congestion of this scale is likely to remain a recurring feature of the Lagos shipping position rather than an isolated week’s anomaly. For Nigerian shippers, freight forwarders and importers already contending with elevated global freight rates, that is a cost that ultimately lands on the consumer.
Source: NPA
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