PETROL station attendant Amadou Sani gesticulated to approaching motorists in Niamey to keep going because the garage had no more fuel.
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.
“Our tanks have been dry for three days. No-one can say when we’ll be resupplied,” grumbled Mohamed, manager of another 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.
Vehicles queue for petrol at a fuel station in the outskirts of Niamey, on March 9, 2025. (Photo by BOUREIMA HAMA / AFP)
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.
The reason is principally down to the drying up of the flourishing black market supplied from neighbouring Nigeria, a major global producer.
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.
