Niger has been grappling since the start of the month with an unprecedented shortage of the most widely used petrol in the west African country. The reason is principally down to the drying up of the flourishing black market supplied from neighbouring Nigeria, a major global producer. “Our tanks have been dry for three days. No-one can say when we’ll be resupplied,” grumbled Mohamed, manager of a petrol station on the capital’s outskirts. “You see that taxi over there? The driver went around town and finally ran out of fuel here,” the manager, who did not want to give his full name, told AFP. Exasperated Nigeriens can often be seen under the blazing sun pushing their motorbikes or walking through the streets carrying an empty can. Niger – which produces oil but refines only a small amount of it – has suffered fuel shortages in the past but not to the current extent. The Soraz refinery in Zinder is the only one in the country. It “can no longer satisfy domestic demand”, which has surged for more than a year now, the state-owned Nigerien Company for Oil Products (Sonidep) said on Saturday. Two years ago, prices tripled after Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ended costly fuel subsidies. The fuel that came into Niger illegally from Nigeria represented up to half of the market. It supplied the large regions near the border between the two countries, Sonidep commercial director Maazou Oumani Aboubacar said. The shortage hit some of Niger’s towns first before reaching the capital, Niamey, where many petrol stations now have nothing to sell.
At the few garages in the city centre that still had fuel on Sunday, motorists and motorbike riders waited patiently and the roads were quieter than normal.