Madar (Niamey) - Niger's petrol shortage has spread to the capital Niamey, which had so far been relatively spared, with queues growing at filling stations since the weekend amid insufficient refining capacity and dwindling smuggled supplies from Nigeria, Africanews reported on Monday, October 19, 2026.
Meeting in crisis session on Sunday, the high-level committee tasked with the oil sector's difficulties agreed emergency steps: buying super petrol from Nigeria and emptying the remaining tanks of state fuel company SONIDEP at the Zinder refinery SORAZ, pending 30 million litres of petrol expected from Algeria within days, according to the Mondafrique website.
The site said a video shared on social media at dawn on Monday showed tankers leaving the SONIDEP depot to supply the capital's stations, a day after residents competed for scarce petrol and following weeks of recurrent power cuts.
The cabinet decided on October 9 to keep pump prices at 499 CFA francs a litre for petrol and 618 CFA francs for diesel, the same source said.
The shortage comes days after Niger banned gasoline and diesel exports to supply the domestic market first, although the country has been exporting crude oil for about two years.
