Business · Central & West Africa
Cameroon turns to Dangote’s refinery for half its fuel in a 30-month deal, but the Yaoundé signing is postponed
State refiner SONARA, idle since a 2019 fire, will buy petrol, diesel and jet fuel straight from Lekki, with MRS shipping it to Limbé. Aliko Dangote’s trip to Yaoundé was called off at the last minute. The contract value has not been disclosed.
LAGOS — Cameroon’s state refiner SONARA has agreed to buy about half of the country’s refined fuel from Aliko Dangote’s refinery in Lekki, Lagos, under a 30-month deal. It is one of the clearest signs yet of the Nigerian plant turning into a regional supplier. The Nigerian trader MRS will handle shipping and logistics to SONARA’s facilities in Limbé.
The agreement was signed in Lagos on 22 October, SONARA general manager Harouna Bako said in a statement reported by Mimi Mefo Info. A ceremony to formalise it in Cameroon on Thursday, which Dangote had been expected to attend, was postponed because of “last-minute constraints” on the Dangote side, and no new date was given. SONARA went ahead with a presentation of the agreement at the Hilton in Yaoundé on Thursday, Kamer Infos reported.
Buying at the refinery gate
SONARA’s Limbé refinery has not refined crude since a fire in May 2019, so Cameroon imports all its petrol, diesel and jet fuel through traders. Under the new arrangement SONARA buys directly from Dangote, MRS carries the cargoes and bears transport, insurance, quality and quantity risk as far as Limbé, and SONARA then supplies the domestic market. “The purchase prices are the refinery prices, so there is no intermediation price,” SONARA’s director of operations said at the Yaoundé presentation, according to Kamer Infos (AB24 translation). She said the company had recently rejected an imported cargo on quality grounds.
EcoMatin reported that the deal followed about nine months of negotiations and includes “back-to-back” pricing so that SONARA can see Dangote’s price and check the costs added before delivery. It said SONARA had secured FCFA 124bn in financing from the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation in September to fund purchases, and that this was a facility to support the contract, not the contract’s value, which has not been disclosed.
A contract under scrutiny
The deal has drawn questions at home. The Cameroonian site CamerounWeb has published allegations that MRS was awarded a 2026–2028 supply contract without a tender. AB24 has not been able to verify those allegations. Bako defended the agreement in Yaoundé. “I repeat, it is a strategic contract, a contract that safeguards the interests of SONARA and of the State,” he said, according to Kamer Infos (AB24 translation), describing it as “well framed” and “well matured”.
AB24’s reading from Lagos: for Dangote, a contracted share of a neighbouring country’s fuel market is the kind of anchor export deal the refinery has been chasing. For Cameroon, the test is cost and reliability. No guarantee of lower pump prices has been made. Watch for the rescheduled signing with Dangote, the first cargoes into Limbé and whether SONARA publishes the contract terms.
Sources: Mimi Mefo Info, 30 Oct 2026 (citing SONARA statement); Kamer Infos, 29 Oct 2026; EcoMatin, Oct 2026; CamerounWeb, Oct 2026 (allegations not verified by AB24).
— AB24 · Lagos