Nigeria’s massive Dangote refinery is boosting purchases of the country’s crude, helping to stem waning demand for grades from West Africa in light of uncertainty over the resumption of oil shipments from the Middle East.
Dangote’s ramp-up in buying has boosted the price of Nigerian crude grades compared with those from Angola. The two countries make up the backbone of West Africa’s oil market, but have seen premiums for their physical crude grades take different directions as the Iran war drags on.
Nigeria’s Bonga, Escravos and Bonny Light crude for July loading are being offered at premiums of about $5.50 to $7 per barrel above the Dated Brent benchmark, according to traders specializing in the deals. That’s as much as $2 per barrel stronger than deals for June barrels, the people said.
Dangote took in more than 16 million barrels of Nigerian oil last month, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. That equates to 526,000 barrels a day, or the lion’s share of the plant’s 700,000 barrel a day capacity. Prices for the supplies would be far lower without the refinery’s buying power to clear up the market, the people said. Nigeria typically trades about 50 million barrels of crude per month.
Angola, meanwhile, has had to contend with a pullback from its biggest buyer China. The Asian nation’s purchases of overseas oil slumped to the lowest in more than eight years last month as the Iran war caused global prices to soar and Beijing held off on scrambling for barrels, customs data showed.
Last week, state-run Sonangol offered Angolan Dalia crude at a $1.80 a barrel discount to Dated Brent, down from an offer of $3.50 above the benchmark last month for a June shipment, and far below a peak premium of $10.60 per barrel paid in mid-April.
China’s crude imports in 2026 are expected to drop by about 16% from a year earlier due to factors including weak product demand and elevated inventories, according to GL Consulting. Loadings of West African oil toward to China for May were expected to fall to the lowest since June 2025, according to a survey of traders from last month.