In Niamey, behind the closed doors of the Prime Minister’s office, the management of the oil crisis has descended into a bare-knuckle financial brawl. Explosive revelations from an October 12, 2026 closed-door meeting lay bare the failures of SONIDEP, the inflation of dubious penalties, and the high-stakes standoff with SORAZ.
A closed-door meeting that ended in fiasco
The meeting, held on Monday, October 12, 2026, at the Primature under the direct chairmanship of Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, was officially meant to unblock the oil sector and secure the country’s fuel supply. Instead, it collapsed into a fiasco.
To uncover what really happened behind those doors, we spoke at length with a senior official directly involved in the file. Given the gravity of the facts and the pressure on sector players, this informant requested strict anonymity. His account paints a picture of a system on its last legs, where financial interests have overridden public governance.
Eight meetings, zero results: SORAZ’s angry refusal
The first clash of the session centered on the committee’s own costs. According to our informant, the Zinder Refining Company (SORAZ) was formally ordered to pay a 12 million FCFA bill for session allowances for that single day.
This time, the refinery’s management flatly refused. And for good reason: “It was the ninth meeting of its kind, the third chaired directly by the head of government,” our anonymous source confides. “Each time, SORAZ has shelled out tens of millions to finance this committee’s lifestyle, without any technical or financial solution ever being delivered. The company simply said stop to what now looks like a racket.”
To guarantee the survival of this lucrative system, the committee allegedly inserted a clause into its own texts allowing it to arbitrarily extend its mandate beyond twelve months, citing persistent instability in the sector.
Where did the 418 billion FCFA go? From SONIDEP to the Palace
At the heart of the dispute between the state, the Nigerian Petroleum Products Company (SONIDEP), and SORAZ lies a colossal debt: 418 billion FCFA owed by SONIDEP to the refinery.
During the October 12 committee, state representatives were unable to present a contradictory or certified accounting table. “They came empty-handed, citing press clippings instead of providing certified balance sheets,” our witness says indignantly.
But where did the money go? Our informant lifts the veil on the internal breakdown of this financial hole:
- 12% covers cross-claims with the electricity company NIGELEC;
- 18% corresponds to authorized withdrawals for the benefit of the armed forces;
- 70% represents direct outflows from SONIDEP, part of which was transported in cash to the presidential palace.
Faced with the impossibility of justifying this massive evaporation of liquidity, a debt-erasure strategy was allegedly devised.
The penalty factory: a financial trap for SORAZ
To wipe the 418 billion FCFA owed to SORAZ off the books, the committee allegedly set about inventing and artificially inflating penalties imposed on the refinery.
Our source explains the mechanism: over the course of the meetings, the penalties demanded from SORAZ skyrocketed from 6 billion to 76 billion FCFA. But the plan goes much further. The clearing mechanism for cross-claims between the state, SONIDEP, NIGELEC, SORAZ, and the Chinese partner CNPC would serve as a pretext to load SORAZ with new record penalties, estimated between 200 and 400 billion FCFA.
“The goal is crystal clear,” our anonymous informant sums up. “Manufacture fictitious debts on SORAZ’s books to offset the 418 billion FCFA claim that SONIDEP cannot repay.”
Technical sabotage and forced production cuts
The investigation also reveals that financial tensions have a direct impact on the industrial tool and the safety of the Zinder site. While official speeches promised production would climb back to 20,000 barrels per day, actual output has collapsed to around 12,000 barrels.
According to our source, this drop is explained by direct manipulation suffered by the refinery: “Algerian operators, acting on direct instructions from Nigerian authorities, physically intervened on SORAZ’s valves.”
This maneuver allegedly caused significant overheating phenomena on the installations, jeopardizing the safety of equipment and personnel. In this climate of disorganization, the refinery’s major maintenance operation, initially planned for October, was urgently postponed to next May.
The shortage paradox: the mystery of 1,000 daily barrels
On the domestic market, the picture is bitter for the population: fuel is critically scarce. Yet the figures revealed by our informant show a glaring inconsistency.
Even with production reduced to 12,000 barrels per day and national consumption estimated at 11,000 barrels per day, the Nigerian market should theoretically generate a surplus of 1,000 barrels daily.
Where does this surplus go? Failures in tracing volumes leaving Zinder, combined with the grey areas surrounding flows from the Algerian corridor and the agreement with the Ader refinery, fuel uncertainty about the existence of parallel networks.
Contacted for comment on these accusations and our informant’s statements, neither the Primature nor SONIDEP’s management wished to respond. One thing is certain: behind the fuel pump crisis, the entire governance of Niger’s oil windfall is now trapped in its own contradictions.