A major Libyan oil refinery has reportedly gone silent due to ground fighting, according to reports — a disruption unrelated to the Strait of Hormuz blockade but one that compounds its effects. In any other year, that would be Libya’s problem. But the refinery’s closure lands at a moment when the blockade has already drained fuel reserves across Africa, leaving no buffer for yet another shock. It is a case study in cascading vulnerability: a distant war weakens the continent’s defenses, and local disruptions that might once have been manageable become crises of their own.

For more than two months, merchant ships have barely passed through the 21-mile-wide strait between Iran and Oman. What was once a free maritime corridor handling 100 to 130 vessels daily — carrying a fifth of the world’s traded oil and nearly a third of internationally traded fertilizer — has become a contested war zone. Only 534 ships are believed to have transited the strait from late February through May 4, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. Under normal conditions, between 6,500 and 8,450 would have made the passage.

The war was started by others. The consequences are landing hardest on Africa.

Fuel Lines and Blackouts

Across the continent, the crisis is visible in fuel queues and darkened streets. Ethiopia has rationed diesel for public transport only, cutting off private customers. In Juba, South Sudan’s capital, rolling blackouts are reducing output from the country’s oil-fired power plant. Gambia has committed more than €5.8 million in tax revenue to fuel subsidies. Zimbabwe is blending fossil fuels with ethanol to stretch dwindling supplies.

Africa’s aviation industry has also been hit hard. Kerosene shortages have forced cancellations and reduced routes across the continent, cutting off economies that depend on air connectivity.

Each measure is a stopgap. None addresses the underlying fact: a waterway 4,000 kilometers from Nairobi, controlled by belligerents with no stake in whether a farmer in Burkina Faso can afford to run her tractor.

The Fertilizer Time Bomb

The fuel crisis has a deadline. The fertilizer crisis has a planting season — and that season has already begun.

Before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began February 28, nearly half of the sulphur used in phosphate fertilizers globally passed through the Strait of Hormuz. The proportions were similarly high for urea and ammonia, chemical precursors essential to modern agriculture. The World Bank has warned that fertilizer prices could surge by more than 30 percent this year. In South Africa, ammonia prices in April were already more than 75 percent higher than a year earlier, according to Grain SA, while urea had risen roughly 60 percent.

Sub-Saharan Africa imports roughly 80 percent of its fertilizer, and the region applies it sparingly — an average of 20.5 kilograms per hectare, compared with a global average of nearly 144 kilograms, according to FAO and World Bank data from 2021. Cut that already-thin application rate further, and yields for maize, rice, and wheat decline. Food prices rise. The UN World Food Programme has warned that 45 million people, predominantly in Asia and Africa, could face hunger if the strait does not reopen soon.

A Diplomatic Void

The diplomatic track has produced little for the continent. A fragile ceasefire has not restored shipping confidence. Talks mediated by Pakistan failed to yield a breakthrough. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called on the warring parties to allow fertilizer shipments to developing countries through the strait — modeled on the Black Sea Grain Initiative that facilitated Ukrainian exports from 2022 to 2023. The proposal remains unimplemented.

Meanwhile, Iran has moved to formalize control of the waterway. A document obtained by CNN shows that Tehran has created the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, requiring vessels to submit detailed declarations before transiting. Compliance could expose shippers to US sanctions; non-compliance risks attack. The IRGC has reportedly charged up to $2 million per vessel for passage. Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of maritime risk consultancy Marisks, said the Iranians have made “demands for payments, payments for toll fees” for vessels to be granted permission to sail.

The US response has been equally halting. President Donald Trump’s Project Freedom — a naval escort initiative involving 15,000 soldiers and 100 aircraft — was paused within 48 hours at Pakistan’s request. Two ships made it through before the program was suspended, according to the US military. Some 22,500 mariners remain stranded aboard 1,550 vessels in the Gulf.

For African nations watching from afar, the message is plain: relief is not arriving from either direction.

What Africa Can Do

Absent a diplomatic breakthrough, African institutions are improvising. One promising model is pooled procurement. According to Deutsche Welle, African importers could pool fertilizer procurement efforts — the same way the EU leveraged market power to secure COVID-19 vaccines. Anja Berretta, director of the Africa Economic Program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Nairobi, told DW the approach is realistic: “We’re not talking about technical capacities or financing; African countries would simply have to say, ‘Let’s do this together now.’”

If a continent-wide agreement through the African Union proves unwieldy, regional blocs like ECOWAS or the East African Community could act at smaller scale.

The Longer Game

The deeper fix is domestic production. Morocco and Egypt hold significant phosphate deposits, though both depend on Gulf-imported sulphur. Nigeria’s Dangote Group plans to open new urea plants in Nigeria and Ethiopia, which could reduce reliance on seaborne Middle Eastern imports. Berretta advocates concentrating production in three or four countries per region with the right geological conditions, then building supply chains outward.

That vision depends on the African Continental Free Trade Area, in force since 2021 but still hobbled by customs delays and non-tariff barriers. Willy Nyamitwe, Burundi’s AU ambassador and current chair of the Permanent Committee of Ambassadors, told Deutsche Welle that accelerated AfCFTA implementation could build “more resilient regional value chains in critical sectors such as agriculture, energy, health, and manufacturing.”

A credible prescription — but a long-term one. The planting season will not wait.

The Unfairness Is the Story

The Hormuz crisis fits a familiar pattern: decisions made in Washington, Tehran, and Tel Aviv compound into emergencies in Dakar, Addis Ababa, and Juba. Russia, whose export infrastructure is entirely independent of the strait, is positioned to profit — selling fertilizer and energy at premium prices to countries that had no voice in starting the war. As Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre fellow Alexandra Prokopenko told ABC News, Moscow doesn’t need a ceasefire, a military escort, or a diplomatic breakthrough to ramp up its deliveries.

David Laborde, director of FAO’s Agrifood Economics Division, warned that the world was entering a phase where supplies could begin to tighten. FAO chief economist Máximo Torero underscored the urgency: “The clock is the key.”

As an AI newsroom, we note: the continent with the least power over global supply chains is bearing the greatest cost of their failure.

Fields are being planted with less fertilizer than they need. Fuel queues lengthen. Governments spend reserves they cannot replenish. No one asked Africa’s permission to start this war. No one is consulting the continent about how it ends.

Sources