Crisis Emptying Nigeria, Africa’s Jet Fuel Reserves

The crisis threatening to ground the continent’s aviation industry is far more visceral, and it is unfolding thousands of miles away, writes WOLE SHADARE

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has sounded a resounding alarm, warning that Africa’s jet fuel storage is rapidly drying up.

For decades, the standard playbook for African airlines battling operational turbulence has relied on familiar variables: fluctuating currencies, heavy tax regimes, and regulatory gridlock.

What began as a localised military flare-up in the Middle East has evolved into a severe global energy-supply shock, leaving African carriers at the vulnerable end of a crumbling logistical chain.

At Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, as well as major hubs from Accra to Nairobi, the reality is biting hard. The lifeblood of African aviation, Jet A-1 fuel, is becoming a scarce, luxury commodity.

The Strait of Hormuz Chokepoint

The crisis traces its origins back to the escalating conflict in the Middle East. The crucial Strait of Hormuz, the maritime artery through which roughly 20% of the world’s petroleum and a massive chunk of its refined aviation kerosene flows, has become effectively impassable. Tanker traffic through the chokepoint has collapsed by an astonishing 70% to 80%.

Regional Vice President for Africa and the Middle East at the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Kamil Alawahdi, while fielding questions from Aviation Metric at the IATA’s 82nd Annual General Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which ended yesterday, said that for Africa, which relies overwhelmingly on refined fuel imports from the Persian Gulf, the geographic disconnect has triggered immediate structural shockwaves.

He further stated that alternative suppliers such as India and China are facing their own constraints, and rerouting cargo ships around the Cape of Good Hope adds weeks to delivery schedules, compounding costs due to skyrocketing “war-risk” insurance premiums.

That angle gets right to the heart of what Alawadhi has been emphasising. The lack of localised, large-scale storage infrastructure means African carriers have almost no safety buffer when global supply chains choke.

“CEOs and airlines immediately start on the wrong foot in Africa,” Alawadhi has repeatedly warned, noting that structural disadvantages keep operating costs on the continent significantly higher than the global average. Chief among these disadvantages is a severe deficit in localised fuel infrastructure.

While the geopolitical shockwaves from the Middle East are the external trigger, Alawadhi points out that the internal crisis is one of storage capacity. Unlike other regions that can rely on weeks or months of fuel reserves to ride out market spikes, many African hubs operate on a knife-edge.

A Drastic Toll on Costs and Operations

Aviation fuel is traditionally an airline’s largest expense, typically accounting for about 30% of operating costs. Today, that equation has been completely obliterated. According to IATA data, global benchmark jet fuel prices have virtually doubled over the last few months.

 In Africa, the situation is even harsher, with coastal and inland airports reporting fuel price surges of 70% or more.

Airlines simply cannot absorb these numbers. The immediate fallout is already reshaping African skies in network reduction as national and regional carriers are frantically auditing their routes. Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc has already moved to temporarily suspend several loss-making European and regional African routes to protect its bottom line.

He noted that for the average traveller, the crisis lands squarely in the wallet. Ticket prices across West and East Africa are climbing steeply as airlines introduce fuel surcharges to survive the margin squeeze.

Compounding the crisis locally is the chronic fragmentation among domestic operators. As I have repeatedly noted, African, and specifically Nigerian, airlines suffer from a severe lack of operational collaboration.

 Instead of pooling resources or negotiating collectively for bulk fuel purchases to weather this storm, airlines are fighting individually, worsening operational inefficiencies.

His words, “The problem with Africa is that it didn’t have, because of the availability of fuel coming out of the Hormuz, it didn’t have big storage.

“It didn’t need it because within a week, fuel was coming from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) into Africa. I think this, if anything, is the one lesson Africa should take: increasing its storage capacity in case such a disruption occurs. But otherwise, I think if you look, there isn’t, today, there isn’t a country reporting shortage of fuel or availability of fuel.”

Lack of substitute

IATA Director General Willie Walsh recently emphasised that the aviation industry is completely unable to substitute jet fuel at scale. When the taps run dry, the planes simply stop flying. Walsh noted that the crisis underscores an “urgent need to strengthen jet fuel resilience through dedicated strategic reserves, diversified sourcing, and closer coordination between governments, airlines, and refiners.”

At prominent gateways like Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International, reserve fuel stocks have frequently hovered at just over four days of supply. When maritime routes are disrupted, coastal and inland storage networks dry up almost instantly, leaving airlines completely exposed to immediate shortages and localised price gouging.

His assessments paint a bleak financial picture for the continent’s carriers. Because of weak infrastructure, heavy localised taxes, and complicated import logistics, jet fuel in Africa is routinely 17% more expensive than the global average.

When you layer a global crisis on top of that existing 17% premium, the financial math becomes impossible.

With margins already squeezed under a single dollar per passenger, African airlines simply do not have the financial capital to absorb sudden, massive spikes in fuel costs.

A single delayed flight or an emergency fuel stop at an alternate airport can completely wipe out the profitability of an entire route.

For Alawadhi, the fix isn’t just capping prices or waiting for international shipping lanes to clear. It requires African states to fundamentally treat aviation fuel storage as critical national infrastructure.

IATA is urging a coordinated regional strategy to address this vulnerability by urging governments to invest in high-capacity strategic fuel reserves at primary hubs so airlines aren’t vulnerable to week-to-week maritime arrivals; transitioning away from sole reliance on Middle Eastern refined products by investing in regional brownfield refinery upgrades and accelerating Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) production.

The IATA chief has heavily championed Africa’s massive potential for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

IATA estimates Sub-Saharan Africa could supply up to 106 million tonnes of SAF feedstock by 2050. Building local SAF infrastructure would simultaneously solve the continent’s energy security crisis and insulate it from foreign geopolitical shockwaves.

Last line

Without these structural overhauls, Alawadhi warns that the continent’s immense aviation potential, with passenger demand projected to grow by 6%, will remain permanently hijacked by its fragile fuel lines.

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