INTERVIEW: African oil trader Mocoh seeks second life as Dangote squeezes flows

The start-up of Nigeria's Dangote refinery is challenging West Africa's traders to reinvent themselves as established oil flows dwindle.

For Swiss-based Mocoh, a paradigm shift in its core Nigerian business has it eying intra-African trade, the East African market and biofuels to secure its future, its new CEO told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, in an interview.

"Our strategy very much covers all of sub-Saharan Africa in the coming years," said CEO Olivier Lassagne, sharing that the trader has fought to quickly outgrow its niche focusing on Nigerian gasoline.

For years, West Africa relied on European imports for its fuel, cultivating a booming market for traders to supply its state oil firms and marketing companies.

But in 2024, the Dangote refinery, with a nameplate capacity of 650,000 b/d, turned the market on its head, making Nigeria -- Africa's largest oil consumer -- now a major fuel outlet. And with other downstream projects in the pipeline across Angola, Ghana and Ivory Coast, traders are having to recalibrate.

New Nigerian landscape

In the lead up to his appointment as CEO in January 2025, Lassagne saw Mocoh lose most of its gasoline trade with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., once a major customer.

Nonetheless, the company has sought to retain its foothold in the Nigerian market. After NNPC vowed to end foreign gasoline purchases, private companies have sustained imports, and trade with Dangote has presented new opportunities.

"Mocoh has been present for 27 years in Africa and especially in Nigeria, so it's in our DNA to kind of reinvent ourselves every time the market changes," Lassagne said.

To the surprise of its sceptics, the Dangote refinery reached a throughput of around 550,000 b/d in early 2025, pushing Nigeria's gasoline imports to record lows.

Yet traders have remained on call to plug short-term deficits, as was recently exhibited in April during a month-long outage on the plant's main gasoline unit.

Long-term, Nigeria's import market could also see a revival as growing demand is set to increasingly outpace new capacity.

According to Commodity Insights forecasts, Nigeria's gasoline deficit could sink to 50,000 b/d in 2027, before economic and population growth boost the shortfall to more than 250,000 b/d by 2035.

Dangote export routes

Through its partnership with Dangote, Mocoh now handles significant exports from Nigeria, which it delivers to nearby markets short of fuel like Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Benin.

The trader's West African presence makes it a strong contender to fulfil promises by Dangote to boost intra-regional trade; however, observed exports from the refinery have quickly reached a global market, leaving the continent.

To date, the refiner has partnered mostly with Vitol, BP and Trafigura, prioritizing access to international networks. A Dangote executive said the company has not yet engaged with Atmin, a new Afreximbank-backed trader with a mandate to grow intra-African trade.

"I have the feeling that Dangote cares a lot about its independence and doesn't want to be tied up with only one deal or one partner," said Mocoh's Lassagne. "They like the idea of selling their product into the region, but not at a discount," he said, expecting significant volumes to be held back for spot trade.

Swap appeal

In 2024, Dangote entered a form of crude-for-products deal with NNPC, which committed it to keep fuel within the Nigerian market.

A senior refinery source told Platts that the deal, which was transacted in Nigeria's naira, "wasn't commercially advantageous," bemoaning foreign exchange exposure between the point of purchase and sale.

However, according to Lassagne, crude-for-product swap deals could prove mutually beneficial for Dangote and its counterparties, potentially supporting regional trade.

In 2025, Dangote began importing its first foreign African crudes, including grades from Angola, Algeria and Equatorial Guinea, opening the door to potential partnerships.

For the refiner, oil swaps could reduce huge foreign exchange requirements to finance its working capital, while traders could get peace of mind.

"It's in the interest of the traders because you can mitigate your risk – when you supply your crude, you know that you are going to be repaid," Lassagne said.

Beyond Nigeria

As traders jostle for partnerships with Dangote, many have flocked to new markets that lack refineries.

In July 2024, Mocoh established an East African trading team, seeking growth in major demand hubs Tanzania and Mozambique.

As key entry points to the African hinterland, both countries have supported sizeable trade volumes for Mocoh, Lassagne said, but logistical constraints have proved a huge challenge.

In Mozambique's port of Beira, vessels are forced to wait roughly two months before they can discharge.

In March, floating oil stocks leapt to multi-year highs, causing Mocoh and others to rack up eyewatering demurrage fees.

"Today people are not fighting much over the price, they are fighting about finding ullage and finding capacity to pump the product to the hinterland," Lassagne said.

Long-term growth forecasts see investments from the likes of India's Adani Ports and the UAE's DP World, but infrastructure projects will take years to materialize, Lassagne said. In the interim, Mocoh is reluctant to pump capital into debottlenecking markets.

"Right now Mocoh is very asset light – we are very much a trading company and we like that," Lassagne stressed. "If you have built a massive storage somewhere in the region and flows change, then you are a bit stuck."

Biofuels gambit

As decarbonization efforts erode world oil demand growth, Mocoh has looked to frontier markets to secure its future.

In 2024, the trader set up a biofuels trading arm, and it has founded a Nigerian feedstock aggregator to collect and process used cooking oil, tallow and cashew nut shell liquid.

For now, the company mostly sources material from Asia and sells into Europe, but it has eyed a growing role for Africa as a European feedstock source as mandates kick in.

"We wanted to be a bit ahead of the curve. Because it's relatively different to traditional oil trading, we decided we wanted to build that capacity," Lassagne said.

It could be another decade before Africa develops a domestic market, he added. However, if Dangote improves fuel affordability, countries could be empowered to ramp up environmental measures.

For better or for worse, Mocoh is staying put. "We don't really want to diversify outside Africa – it's not in our DNA. We are an African trader," Lassagne said.