Afreximbank rolls out $3bn credit line to cut Africa's fuel imports

Source: Afreximbank.

The bank expects the facility to provide $10–14bn of trade finance over its first three years and help chip away at the region's roughly $30bn annual fuel-import bill, it said.

Both oil export- and import-dependent economies have been whipsawed this year by a sharp fall in crude prices and a jump in freight costs. Brent crude is down more than 20% since mid-January on supply dynamics and on fears that a global trade war will sap demand.

Meanwhile, insurance costs for ships using the Red Sea have climbed again after renewed Houthi attacks prompted US airstrikes on Yemen in March, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to a typical fuel cargo.

By shifting purchases to nearby refineries and locking in bank credit upfront, governments can limit the budget shock from such external swings.

The Revolving Intra-African Oil Import Financing Programme is rooted in Afreximbank’s recent push to boost regional processing capacity.

The Cairo-based lender is the largest financier of Nigeria’s 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote refinery. It has also helped overhaul Nigeria's Port Harcourt oil complex and is arranging funding for plants in Angola and Ivory Coast too.

These ventures could add around 1.3  million  bpd of refining capacity.

"The programme will galvanise efforts towards making the Gulf of Guinea a key refining hub," Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah said in a statement on Monday, 28 April 2025.

Afreximbank will issue or confirm letters of credit, discount trade instruments and provide advances to energy ministries, state fuel importers and private traders that buy from African refineries.

The credit line also serves as a practical test bed for the African Continental Free Trade Area, which seeks to deepen regional commerce and industrialisation.

Afreximbank will also be a controlling shareholder of Atmin, a new trading house set up by former Shell oil traders to focus on African oil trading, two trading sources said.