Big oil traders are reducing purchases of Russian oil to comply with European sanctions that take effect this month. This will further cut the flow to Africa of fuel refined in Europe from Russian oil
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe economic costs of shortages are huge. They bring commerce to a grinding halt, shut the millions of businesses that have to generate their own electricity and force holidaymakers to cancel trips for lack of flights. This is a blow to tourism, a large contributor toin many African countries. The social impact is large, too. Hospitals cannot get drugs and ambulances are immobilised. All this makes politicians jumpy.
The shortages are not simply the result of higher prices that have made fuel unaffordable to poorer buyers in many parts of Africa. They have also been caused by several other market changes that particularly affect the continent, says Kristine Petrosyan of the International Energy Agency , an intergovernmental think-tank.
The problem is being aggravated by a turn in the futures market: the price for deliveries of oil at a future date has fallen far below that for immediate delivery. In more usual times traders would park dozens of full oil tankers off the west African coast, where they would wait for higher prices. Now traders want to unload them as quickly as possible and send them to Asia through the Suez canal, avoiding Africa altogether.
A second vulnerability is that sub-Saharan countries refine little oil domestically. Many of their refineries are badly run and operate far below capacity or are too small to compete. Refinery output in sub-Saharan Africa has fallen by half over the past decade, even as oil demand in the region has risen by 19%, according to the. Sub-Saharan Africa now imports about three-quarters of its refined products on average, a greater share than any other region.
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