Andrey Fedorov: ‘There is no reason to expect a collapse in Russian hydrocarbon supplies to Africa, nor secondary sanctions against African countries.’

Andrey Vladimirovich Fedorov, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Sub-Saharan Africa, Doctor of Economics, told the African Initiative news agency what the next round of the trade war could mean for Africa. The full version of the article is available on the AI website.

According to S&P Global, since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, exports of petroleum products from Russia to Africa have increased 14-fold in 2023, from 33,000 barrels to 420,000 barrels per day. Africa as a whole accounts for 15% of Russia's total exports of oil, gas and petroleum products, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). From 2013 to 2020, the African continent accounted for only 1% of supplies from Russia, but by 2023 this figure had risen to approximately 8%. In 2023, Russian oil exports to Africa are projected to reach 18-20 million tonnes, while total exports are projected to reach 234 million tonnes.

North Africa has significantly increased its purchases of Russian hydrocarbons. According to various estimates, this region accounts for 65-75%, said Andrey Fedorov, Doctor of Economics at the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with AI. This applies to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Morocco. For example, Egypt purchases fuel oil and diesel fuel from Russia, and in recent years, the volume of supplies has increased significantly due to Cairo's domestic energy needs. In June 2025 alone, Cairo received 400,000 tonnes of fuel oil.

Russia has also increased supplies to countries south of the Sahara, such as South Africa, with which LUKOIL and Gazprom Neft cooperate. Nigeria has increased imports from Russia fivefold. In addition, Senegal, Ghana and Togo have become major importers of Russian oil and refined products.

"The strategic market for the Russian Federation is the Asia-Pacific region, which will account for nearly 65% of the market in 2024. The African market is important to Russia as a replacement for the European market and as a rapidly growing market for hydrocarbon consumption. According to OPEC estimates, African demand for crude oil will increase by 80% by 2045," explained Fedorov from the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Among those who may abandon Russian hydrocarbons are such large BRICS countries as South Africa and Egypt. These two countries will easily make up for the shortfall through other suppliers. Andrei Fedorov, Doctor of Economics at the Institute of African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that exports to North Africa will fall to pre-sanction levels in 2022, as the damage from secondary duties is incomparable to the income from Russian hydrocarbons.

This will lead to the emergence of other conduit (intermediate) countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are not heavily dependent on the collective West led by the United States and will be able to become a “pipeline” through which Russian hydrocarbons will flow to Africa for a certain period,’ the Africanist believes.

He argues that African countries with strong leadership linked to American elites and the ‘deep state,’ with political and economic trump cards, will always be able to negotiate and find a balance of interests, even in the presence of such a ‘provocateur’ for the West as the Russian Federation. And in the absence of at least one of the key factors in African countries, the situation may develop in a similar way to the recent deal between Trump and the European Union.

According to him, unable to independently wage military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, but at the same time declaring imminent victory, Europe has entered into an unfavourable and obviously unworkable contract with the United States in exchange for military assistance and increased pressure on Moscow, relying on the principle of ‘let's start and see what happens,’ which echoes the Russian saying ‘war will show the plan.’

It is likely that African countries will pause before introducing secondary duties and wait to see how major players such as China, India, Turkey and Brazil will respond. They will also monitor the US reaction to the actions of these countries. If it turns out that trade continues, medium and small players may return to Russian oil or adapt to the sanctions.

For example, oil exports from Russia to North Africa are carried out by sea. Tankers travel to ports south of the Sahara via a long route around the Red Sea. Russian oil is often traded using ships flying the flags of third countries in order to circumvent Western sanctions. Russia's shadow fleet accounted for 61% of all oil exports in 2024, according to a report by the Centre for Energy and Clean Air Research.

There is also a risk that African countries will be subjected to demonstrative punishment for purchasing energy resources from Russia, Fedorov believes. However, America will not dare to ‘throw a boomerang.’ For the collective West, whose economy is based on finance and services, ‘paper oil’ is traditionally more important than actual supplies (paper oil refers to the sale of oil contracts rather than oil itself, which accounts for approximately 93% of the monetary volume of the global market — AI). ‘The consequences of the collapse of the global financial market for oil derivatives are simply unpredictable,’ Fedorov believes.

At the same time, some countries will find it easy to reach an agreement with Washington. For example, Ghana has the most influential African diaspora in the United States, which guarantees a balance in negotiations with America. Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria are the strongest economies in Africa and the most dependent on oil and gas cooperation with Russia, with many trump cards in their hands in negotiations with the United States.

‘So, we should not expect a collapse in Russian hydrocarbon supplies to Africa, nor should we expect secondary sanctions against African countries. Sanctions may be targeted at oil traders and individuals who do not play a significant role in this market, mainly those with Russian citizenship,’ the expert believes.