Marine fuel regulation change to create African winners and losers

The African upstream may be well placed to benefit from IMO 2020, but it poses significant wider risks to the region

The new International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations changing the quality of shipping fuel from January 2020 will have a global effect on oil prices. And the impact of the new regulations on the African oil sector in particular will be profound, given the mix of lower and higher sulphur in oil production in different production centres. Further downstream, there are generally fewer complex refineries in Africa; there are government subsidies for road transport fuels; there is a higher dependence on imported fuels (which are expected to increase in price); and a higher proportion of power generation fed by high sulphur fuels. The challenges posed by the new regulations should be unde