Since 28 February 2026, the Strait of Hormuz has been at a standstill.
The world's most strategic maritime passage, 33 kilometres wide, carrying 20% of the world's oil and 20% of the liquefied natural gas traded globally, is no longer allowing a single ship to pass through. More than 150 oil tankers are anchored there. Insurers have withdrawn their coverage. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have suspended all transit operations. Brent crude oil prices have jumped by more than 12% in a few days. European natural gas prices have soared by 60%.
I am neither a geopolitical analyst nor a military commentator. I am an Ivorian oil entrepreneur. And it is precisely from this position, that of someone who experiences the operational realities of the hydrocarbon sector in Africa on a daily basis, that I wish to share my interpretation of this crisis.
A pragmatic interpretation. An African interpretation.
What the Strait of Hormuz reveals
What is happening today off the coast of Oman is not simply an episode of geopolitical tension. It is a real-time demonstration of the fragility of global energy supply chains.
A single crossing point, a single maritime lock, and the entire global oil and gas architecture is shaken. Prices soar. Refineries slow down. Importing economies tremble.
China, India, Japan and South Korea, which alone account for nearly 70% of the crude oil passing through Hormuz, find themselves in a situation of immediate vulnerability. Europe, which depends on this corridor for 30% of its kerosene and a significant portion of its LNG, is seeing its energy prices rise again in the middle of winter.
The message is clear: dependence on a single corridor, a single supplier, a single link in the chain, is a systemic risk.
And this message concerns us directly, us AFRICANS.
Africa in the equation: an unsustainable paradox
Our continent is rich in hydrocarbons. Nigeria, Angola, Libya, Algeria, Mozambique, Senegal, Ivory Coast – the list of our producing countries grows longer every year. Major new discoveries are announced regularly, such as the recent one off our coast, estimated at 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
And yet, we remain, for the most part, exporters of raw materials and importers of refined products.
We export crude oil. We re-import fuel, kerosene and bitumen. And in between, there is an ocean of dependence, made up of refineries located elsewhere, processing capacities that we have not developed at home, and skills that we have not sufficiently trained locally.
When the Strait of Hormuz closes, it is not only Gulf oil that is blocked. The entire global logistics system is reorganised, alternative routes become overloaded, and costs skyrocket at every link in the chain. And at the end of that chain are our petrol stations, our power stations, our industries, and our households.
It is a paradox that we can no longer afford.
The Dangote lesson
There is a man who understood this before anyone else.
When Aliko Dangote announced the construction of Africa's largest refinery in Lekki, Nigeria, there were many sceptics. Too ambitious. Too complex. Too risky for the continent.
Today, at a time when global supply chains are under strain, this refinery is operating. Nigeria refines its own oil. Petroleum products that, until recently, had to travel around the world before returning to the African continent are now processed locally.
This is sovereignty in action.
What Dangote demonstrated was not simply that an African could build world-class infrastructure. It was that local processing of our resources is not an ideological luxury. It is infrastructure for economic resilience.
Every barrel refined in Africa is a barrel that no longer depends on a strait 8,000 kilometres from our shores.
Local content: from regulation to resilience
For several years now, I have been conveying a simple but demanding message to GESPETROGAZ-CI and our member companies, I have been promoting a simple but demanding message: local content must not only exist. It must be credible, structured and certified.
The Ivory Coast has established a solid legislative framework with the 2022 Local Content Law and its implementing decrees in 2023. This framework provides a better framework for the participation of national companies in oil activities and encourages their gradual integration into the value chain. This is a major step forward for our country.
But the law alone is not enough.
The real challenge is to build a strong national industry, composed of companies capable of operating to international standards, locally trained skills and a structured ecosystem enabling Ivorian players to take their rightful place in the industry.
It is in this spirit that GESPETROGAZ-CI continues its dialogue with public authorities, international companies and training institutions, with a view to making local content a real lever for industrial development and value creation for Côte d'Ivoire. But more than Côte d'Ivoire, what is needed is genuine African integration, a connection between US, cooperation between US, a genuine African preference.
Local content, in its most accomplished form, is exactly what the Ormuz crisis highlights: the ability of a country, an ecosystem, or a continent to function even when the rest of the world is in turmoil.
This is not protectionism. This is not exaggerated pan-Africanism. This is risk management.
What this crisis must change in our approach
I am not suggesting that Africa can cut itself off from the global energy market. That would be naive. We are, and will remain, integrated into global flows. That is, moreover, in our interest.
But this crisis must accelerate three essential projects.
Firstly, local refining and processing. Each producing country must develop processing capacities commensurate with its ambitions. The Integrated Mineral Resources and Energy Policy (PIRME), led by the Minister of Mines, Petroleum and Energy, Mr. Mamadou SANGAFOWA-COULIBALY, is moving in this direction: coordinating the development of our resources to make them a real lever for industrialisation and local value creation.
Secondly, the financial structure of the sector. Our local companies must have access to financing that is commensurate with their projects. Banks must learn about our industry. Guarantee funds, structured financing mechanisms, and partnerships with institutions such as the Africa Energy Investment Corporation (AEICORP) or the African Energy Bank must be expanded.
Thirdly, skills development. Training engineers, technicians and managers capable of operating at all levels of the oil and gas value chain. Not in ten years' time. Now. Because every skill trained locally is one less dependency.
A signal, not a foregone conclusion
The Strait of Hormuz will reopen. Markets will stabilise. Oil tankers will resume their routes.
But the signal will remain.
He tells us that energy sovereignty is not just rhetoric. It is an industrial, technical, financial and human reality. It is built project by project, certification by certification, partnership by partnership.
This is what we do every day with the companies of GESPETROGAZ-CI. This is what visionary industrialists such as Dangote are doing across the continent. This is what Côte d'Ivoire is promoting through its legislative framework and its vision for the sector, and this is what must be promoted. Africa by integrating.
The crisis in Hormuz is not our crisis.
But it must become our trigger.
By Kamel Koné, Chairman of GESPETROGAZ-CI, Co-founder & Deputy Managing Director of HYDRODRILL SA