US Jet Fuel Prices Will Drop Due to Imports from Nigeria’s Dangote Refinery

Nigerian goods from Dangote Refinery are influencing the US energy market by lowering the cost of jet fuel in the US.

Following the shipment of barrels to North America by Nigeria’s Dangote refinery, US jet fuel imports are expected to reach a two-year high in March. This could result in cheaper costs for the aviation fuel during the busiest summer travel season, according to storage brokers and trade analysts.

The exports from Africa’s largest refinery, Dangote, which produces 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), demonstrate how it has the ability to change the dynamics of petroleum trade globally by establishing a new swing supplier in the Atlantic Basin.

It has already demonstrated some success in competing with European refiners on gasoline exports, and the shipments of jet fuel to the US might put domestic producers’ finances in jeopardy in the country that uses the most fuel.

According to statistics from ship-tracking website Kpler, six ships carrying roughly 1.7 million barrels of jet fuel from the Dangote refinery arrived at US ports this month. According to the data, the Hafnia Andromeda, another ship, is scheduled to dock at the Everglades facility on March 29 carrying around 348,000 barrels of jet fuel.

According to the data, US jet fuel imports were about 226,000 barrels per day as of the end of March, the highest level since February 2023.

After years of building delays, the Dangote refinery began production last January. In early February, it scaled up to approximately 85% of capacity, enabling it to sell additional petroleum to foreign markets.

According to James Noel-Beswick, an analyst at Sparta Commodities, a maintenance-related outage of the Phillips 66 Bayway refinery in New Jersey helped provide a unique arbitrage opportunity for flows from Nigeria to the US, even though Dangote is unlikely to be a regular supplier of jet fuel to the US.

Due to high US aviation fuel stocks, the opportunity is either going to close soon or get much smaller, Noel-Beswick continued.

According to TankTiger Chief Operating Officer Steven Barsamian, the average demand for leasing jet fuel storage tanks in Houston and New York Harbor in April is approximately 700,000 barrels on the storage broker’s platform, which is five to six times the usual monthly demand.

Jet fuel costs in the US are expected to drop before the busiest summer travel season, according to Barsamian, as a result of the spike in demand, which is partially caused by the influx of supply from Nigeria.

According to Sparta’s Noel-Beswick, economic headwinds from a stock market selloff and declining consumer confidence could restrict air travel throughout the summer despite decreased prices.

According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, US jet fuel inventories ended February at 45.2 million barrels, the highest level for the month since 1999.

According to the EIA on Monday, the production of jet fuel from US refiners reached a record last year, indicating higher demand compared to other transportation fuels. According to the organization, jet fuel consumption in the US is predicted to reach a record high in 2026.