The Federal Government of Nigeria has pledged full legislative and policy backing for a new West African petrol pricing benchmark, aiming to dismantle the sub-region’s long-standing reliance on European price indices and establish energy independence.
The endorsement was delivered on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, during the opening session of the 2nd West Africa Refined Fuel Market (WAFRFM) Conference at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja.
Hosted by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) alongside the West Africa Regulators Forum (WARF) and S&P Global Commodity Insights, the two-day summit convened energy ministers, refiners, global traders, and financial institutions under the theme: “Funding West Africa Infrastructure & Distribution to Create a Transparent Market for Regional Price Benchmarks.”
Pledging parliamentary backing at the summit, Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), declared that West Africa must transition from being a passive consumer to an active price maker.
“For the better part of half a century, West Africa has been a price taker in a market it consumes from but does not speak in. We import the product, then we import the price signal, and we pay a premium for both,” Ugochinyere said. “A region that refines must price. A region that prices must have a benchmark. A benchmark that is not ours will be someone else’s.”
Ugochinyere assured stakeholders that the National Assembly will collaborate with the NMDPRA to establish statutory protections for price reporting mechanisms, emphasizing that “a voluntary benchmark is a fragile benchmark.”
Keynote speaker and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, underscored that Nigeria’s downstream deregulation under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) is designed to catalyze cross-border growth rather than operate in isolation.
“If we are successful in Nigeria, we haven’t achieved our objective. We want Ghana and our other neighbors to succeed as well,” Lokpobiri stated. “An integrated regional market will allow West African nations to maximize their respective strengths, attract foreign investment, and reduce the dependence of African petroleum markets on pricing structures determined outside the continent.”
Lokpobiri noted that while major achievements, such as the operationalization of the 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote Refinery and ongoing state refinery rehabilitations have altered supply dynamics, extensive midstream capital is still required to bridge distribution gaps across the sub-region.
Expanding on the technical strategy, Mallam Rabiu Umar, Authority Chief Executive of the NMDPRA and Chairman of WARF, stressed that crises in Western Europe or the Mediterranean should no longer dictate fuel prices in Africa.
“Last year was about setting a roadmap; this year is strictly about execution,” Umar declared. “A reference price is not by itself a trading hub, and a conference is not a market. Credible price discovery requires physical infrastructure, commercial liquidity, and operational efficiency across our ports and terminals.”
Umar outlined five key priorities for regulators across ECOWAS: Market Liquidity by expanding actual physical trade volumes within regional hubs, Infrastructure Financing and Regulatory Harmonization by Standardizing product quality specifications across trade corridors.
He also highlighted the importance of Data Integrity and Trading Ecosystems that supports transactions settled in local currencies, including the Nigerian Naira.
Highlighting international alignment, Vera Blei, Head of Platts at S&P Global Energy, revealed that refined product benchmarks are actively being developed in local West African currencies following the launch of S&P Global’s regional hub in Abuja.
Blei urged regional refiners, terminal operators, and international traders to execute physical trades against these emerging references to build the market liquidity required to sustain a independent price discovery system.
