Brent Tears Through $100. Dangote's IPO Officially Opens. Petrol Prices Increase Fourth Time in Two Weeks.

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Welcome back to Energy Nigeria with Rhofurd. This has been the most volatile stretch we have covered yet. Brent tore through $100 and kept climbing toward $108 before easing back, Houthi rebels opened up a second front in the Red Sea, a planned peace meeting on the Strait of Hormuz collapsed just hours before it was due to start, and Nigerian pump prices have now moved four times in three weeks. Today also brought two milestones of its own, Dangote Refinery's landmark IPO formally opened to the public, and Brent snapped back above $107 as the fallout from the collapsed Hormuz talks kept the market on edge.

Let's walk through what happened from Friday through today, then bring it back, as always, to what it means for Nigeria's gas market and for the businesses that depend on a steady, reliable energy supply.

Let's get into it.

OIL PRICES: BRENT SURGES 9% IN A WEEK, THE HORMUZ TALKS COLLAPSE, THEN PRICES SNAP BACK

The rally that had been building all month broke through a major level on Wednesday, September 9, when oil prices jumped above $100 a barrel for the first time since July. Energy Aspects founder Amrita Sen told CNBC that intensifying shipping risk in the Strait of Hormuz, combined with sharp global inventory drawdowns, had pushed the market to what she called an inflection point. China's return to the market added fuel, with crude imports estimated at around 10 million barrels a day this month, about 3 million barrels a day higher than June's decade low, while roughly 120 million barrels were drawn from global inventories in just two weeks.

By Friday, September 11, oil was on track to end the week above $100 for the first time since May, with Trading Economics recording a 9% weekly surge in Brent. The IEA's Oil Market Report, published the same day, showed ICE Brent trading at $105 a barrel, up $21 since the start of August and 45% above pre war levels, while the physical North Sea Dated benchmark had spiked as high as $113.48 a barrel on September 9. The agency estimated that 2.8 billion barrels of oil exports have now been lost through the Strait of Hormuz since the US Iran war began, with flows averaging 7.6 million barrels a day in August, some 13.1 million barrels a day below pre war levels. Alternative routes bypassing Hormuz, along with higher output from producers including Nigeria, the US, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Venezuela, have offset a good part of that loss, but the IEA still cut its global demand forecast for 2026 by a further 940,000 barrels a day, to a decline of 2.5 million barrels a day, the largest annual drop since the pandemic.

Prices eased on Friday after Iranian state media said Tehran would meet Gulf states in Oman to discuss a temporary arrangement for the strait, with Brent settling around $104.61, down 2.81% on the day, according to Trading Economics. Saudi Arabia shut its East West crude pipeline as a precaution after multiple attacks, and Iran backed Houthi fighters advanced to Yemen's Perim Island in the Bab el Mandeb strait, a second choke point that now sits alongside Hormuz as a source of risk.

That diplomatic window did not last. Iran's Foreign Ministry had said foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council and Iraq would gather in Salalah, Oman on Monday, September 14 to hear details of a shipping arrangement Tehran and Muscat had been negotiating. Bahrain said it would not attend, and early Sunday, September 13, an Iranian cargo vessel was struck off Qeshm Island in the strait, killing one person and wounding four. Hours later, Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi announced on social media that the meeting had been postponed indefinitely in the interests of consensus, a decision Iran's Fars news agency said was made jointly by Tehran and Muscat at the request of unnamed regional countries.

Today, Monday, September 14, that collapse fed straight back into prices. Brent climbed from Friday's close of $104.47 to a session high of $108.40, before settling around $107.54, a gain of about 2.9% on the day, according to Investing.com, with the market reading the postponed talks as a sign that a durable resolution over the strait remains distant. By mid session Brent was trading in a $106.18 to $108.46 range, still up more than 30% from a year ago, though on track to finish the week lower than it started, having pulled back from Thursday's $108 peak earlier in the week. Crude Oil, Trading Economics' broader benchmark reading, rose to $102.52 a barrel today, up 2.47% on the day and now up more than 21% over the past month. As of this morning, no new date has been set for the Salalah meeting, and the postponement has added fresh uncertainty to a market already trading near multi month highs.

NIGERIA: DANGOTE'S IPO OFFICIALLY OPENS

Monday, September 7 was a landmark day for Dangote Petroleum Refinery, which unveiled a N2.15 trillion initial public offering aimed at 10 million retail investors, alongside plans to spend $14.3 billion to double its processing capacity. Chief Executive Aliko Dangote said the offer would give Nigerians and other Africans a chance to own a stake in the refinery. The IPO prospectus showed the plant generated about N19.13 trillion in revenue for the first half of 2026, more than doubling the prior year's figure, with net profit of $1.82 billion, a sharp turnaround from the $476 million loss recorded across all of 2025.

Today, Monday, September 14, that offer formally opened to the investing public, with a launch ceremony held on the trading floor of the Nigerian Exchange in Lagos. The offer consists of 4.1 billion new ordinary shares at N525 each, with a minimum subscription of 10 shares valued at N5,250, and will remain open until October 13. At the offer price, the refinery is valued at roughly N65.22 trillion, about $49 billion, using the N1,319.54 reference rate set out in the prospectus, and shares are expected to begin trading on the Nigerian Exchange in November.

The refinery is also positioning for the months ahead. According to Reuters, Dangote has bought at least 16 million barrels of Nigerian crude for October arrival, equal to around 520,000 barrels a day and the bulk of the plant's monthly intake. NNPC will supply eight of Dangote's October cargoes plus a US WTI Midland cargo, matching the monthly record it set in April, May and August, while the refinery received 565,000 barrels a day of Nigerian crude in August alone, nearly double last year's average. That scale of buying is now curbing how much Nigerian crude is available for export at a time when Middle East supply disruptions have made every barrel more valuable.

NIGERIA: PETROL PRICES KEEP CLIMBING, NOW A FOURTH INCREASE IN THREE WEEKS

The Hormuz driven rally is now showing up unmistakably at Nigerian pumps, and it has not stopped moving. Dangote raised its petrol gantry price by N85 per litre, from N1,265 to N1,350, effective September 12, its fourth increase since August 21 and a cumulative rise of N185, or 15.9%, in 22 days. Coastal delivery prices were revised from N1,669,545 to N1,783,530 per metric tonne over the same period. The Major Energy Marketers Association of Nigeria put the estimated domestic landing cost of imported petrol at N1,311.36 per litre as of September 8, above Dangote's prior gantry price and effectively removing any pricing advantage that imported fuel once held.

Checks across Abuja and Lagos through the weekend and into today found filling stations continuing to pass the increase on to motorists. MRS raised its price from N1,300 to N1,400 per litre in Lagos and its environs, NNPC stations moved from N1,275 to N1,375, and independent marketers raised prices from about N1,360 to N1,400, with some stations in Abuja reported as high as N1,430 a litre. IPMAN's National Publicity Secretary, Chinedu Ukadike, said marketers were reviewing prices in line with Dangote's adjustments, while economist Dr Aliyu Ilias warned the increase could worsen inflation and raise transport and food costs nationwide. Former OATUU Secretary General Owei Lakemfa called for stronger regulatory planning so that domestic fuel prices do not automatically rise every time a conflict breaks out thousands of kilometres away.

NIGERIA: AUGUST OUTPUT MEETS OPEC QUOTA FOR A FOURTH STRAIGHT MONTH

Away from prices, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission reported over the weekend that the country produced an average of 1,677,777 barrels of crude oil and condensate a day in August, up 0.4% from July. Excluding condensate, crude output alone averaged 1,500,190 barrels a day, enough to meet Nigeria's OPEC quota for the fourth consecutive month. NUPRC attributed the modest gain largely to the restoration of the Single Buoy Mooring system at the deepwater Erha field, with Bonny Terminal remaining the country's leading export stream at just over 320,000 barrels a day, followed by Forcados at 317,000. Output still trails the roughly 1.84 million barrels a day assumed in the 2026 federal budget, underlining the gap between meeting an OPEC ceiling and hitting the country's own fiscal targets.

NIGERIA: NAVY PUSHES FOR A STRONGER MARITIME SECURITY ALLIANCE

On Friday, September 11, Nigeria's Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Idi Abbas, used a visit from the ECOWAS Standby Force's Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Sheikh Sulaiman Massaquoi, to call for deeper regional maritime cooperation, pointing to the recently launched Combined Maritime Task Force, Gulf of Guinea as a model other African militaries should join. Abbas highlighted Nigeria's recent role moving Chinese donated ECOWAS equipment to Benin Republic and Sierra Leone, and recalled the Navy's 2022 sealift of hardware to Guinea Bissau in support of the ECOWAS Stabilisation Support Mission. He argued that as Africa's maritime and security threats increasingly overlap, no single nation can handle them in isolation, and called for stronger synergy between the ECOWAS Standby Force and the Gulf of Guinea task force to protect shared shipping lanes and energy infrastructure.

NIGERIA: NNPC PUSHES SMART FUELLING STATIONS

Away from prices, NNPC Retail unveiled a fully smart, 24 hour self service fuelling station in Abuja this week, part of a planned rollout of between 50 and 70 such outlets across the country designed to improve fuelling speed, transparency, volume accuracy and customer trust.

WHERE RHOFURD ENERGY COMES IN

This has been the week that best captures why supply planning cannot be an afterthought. Brent surged 9% in a matter of days, a peace meeting that markets were counting on collapsed with less than a day's notice, prices snapped straight back above $107 within hours of that collapse, and Nigerian pump prices have now moved four times in three weeks, with the latest increase still working its way through filling stations as we write this. Layer in a second maritime choke point now under threat in the Red Sea, and it is clear that reliability has to be built into a supply chain long before the next headline breaks.

Rhofurd Energy Limited supplies LPG, propane and condensate, delivering operational standards so our clients receive quality gases for their production needs. When global benchmarks swing by double digits, diplomacy can fall apart overnight, and domestic pump prices move four times in three weeks, the businesses whose gas supply does not depend on any of those headlines are the ones that keep running without interruption. That is the position we have built, and it is where we intend to stay.

Stay energized. That's the story, and we will keep tracking these shifts closely in Energy Nigeria with Rhofurd.

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