The Price of a War You Aren’t Fighting

How an energy shock raises the cost of ordinary commerce across Africa and MENA

Lenz Research Series · Report 01
Evidence cutoff: 12 October 2026
Research window: January–October 2026; February is the principal pre-conflict price baseline

Executive summary

The economic consequences of a war reach businesses that have no involvement in fighting it. They arrive through the cost of a delivery, the cash needed to replenish stock, the terms of a loan and the amount a customer can afford to spend. For these businesses, the decisive question is how much money must be committed before the next sale becomes cash.

This report advances a qualified thesis: the Iran conflict and the associated energy-market disruption have increased the cost of sustaining ordinary commerce, but that burden is distributed unevenly. Physical access to fuel, growing business activity and healthy banks can coexist with pressure on operating margins and working capital. The evidence establishes the market changes and several transmission mechanisms. It does not identify the war’s independent causal effect on the income of the median African or MENA business owner.

Five findings build the case:

1. The finished fuel became more expensive than the crude-price headline suggests. Between February and September, Europe Brent spot rose 61.0%, while US Gulf Coast wholesale diesel rose 112.3%. Petrol and jet-fuel benchmarks rose 89.1% and 94.0%, respectively. These are international comparators, rather than regional pump prices. EIA crude, petrol, diesel, jet fuel.
2. Recovery in crude exports is an incomplete measure of recovery in usable energy. Kpler’s October assessment put regional crude exports, including bypass routes and excluding Iranian loadings, around pre-conflict levels. Regional clean-product loadings remained approximately half below their prewar level. The categories and routes matter. Kpler, 1 October.
3. Nigeria’s refineries used predominantly domestic crude without escaping international price exposure. In April, 97.8% of crude delivered to Nigerian refineries was domestic. Yet selected Dangote petrol gantry announcements rose from ₦774/litre on 10 February to ₦1,325 on 21 September, an increase of 71.2%. Domestic origin does not determine the commercial price of a tradable barrel. NMDPRA, February quote, September quote.
4. Current business and banking evidence rejects a uniform regional-collapse narrative. September business activity expanded in Nigeria, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, while Egypt’s private non-oil economy contracted. Kenya’s banking-system non-performing loan ratio improved through September. These results show adaptation and resilience, while leaving firm-level profitability largely unobserved. Stanbic IBTC, regional PMI analysis, CBK.
5. A smaller percentage change in fuel can produce a much larger change in a thin profit. An illustrative Kenyan transporter with a 10% operating margin and fuel costs equal to 20% of revenue would lose approximately 62% of its original operating profit under Nairobi’s observed 30.8% diesel-price increase, if sales, volume and other costs were unchanged. This is a transparent scenario, not an estimate of average business losses.

The dividing line is therefore more specific than oil exporter versus oil importer, or manufacturing versus services. It runs through fuel intensity, pricing power, payment timing, access to finance and ownership of scarce assets. A producer or tanker owner can earn more while a restaurant, distributor or contractor in the same economy needs more cash to do the same work. The report explains this coexistence and identifies where the evidence remains incomplete.

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1. Research question and analytical proposition

Three apparent discrepancies motivate this inquiry. Why can petrol become more expensive in a country that now refines most of its domestic supply? Why can recovering crude exports fail to bring finished-fuel prices back to their previous level? And why can banks report stronger results while ordinary business owners feel financially constrained?

Each discrepancy comes from comparing measures that answer different questions. Refining capacity describes a production capability. A crude-export flow measures a quantity over a period. Bank earnings measure the return to financial institutions. None directly measures the price of a delivered litre, the cost of financing an inventory cycle or the income retained by a business owner.

The report’s proposition is that an energy disruption changes both the cost of production and the amount of capital required to maintain production. Its incidence—the party that ultimately bears the cost—depends on contracts and market conditions. A firm can pass additional costs to customers, absorb them in its margin, negotiate concessions from suppliers or reduce activity. Financing can bridge the adjustment, but it also has a price and is not equally available.

This proposition yields four observable expectations:

The last expectation does not imply that bank resilience conceals an inevitable crisis. It allows a healthier interpretation as well: firms may have adapted, customers may have accepted higher prices, and lending may be financing productive expansion. The research must accommodate those outcomes rather than assume them away.

The title refers to ordinary businesses bearing consequences of a conflict they are not conducting. It does not imply that every selected country is geopolitically neutral or free of direct exposure.

2. Scope, method and measurement

This is a comparative, descriptive study combining official price series, physical-market assessments, regulator statistics, purchasing managers’ surveys and company accounts. Nigeria is the principal refining case. Kenya provides retail-fuel and banking evidence. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt illustrate different business conditions within MENA. These cases are informative; they are not a statistically representative sample of either region.

February 2026 is the main baseline because the current conflict began on 28 February, as recorded in the IEA conflict chronology. A monthly February average is still an approximation to the immediately preceding market, not an exact counterfactual. January is included to expose the starting trend. Complete monthly global price comparisons end in September. October information is presented as explicitly dated observations or announcements.

Six measures remain separate throughout:

Prices are compared within their own currencies and units. No cross-country price-level ranking is constructed using unmatched exchange rates. Nigerian gantry quotes are not spliced into national retail averages. Missing observations remain missing.

The evidence is classified in three ways: observed values from identified sources; derived calculations using disclosed arithmetic; and illustrative scenarios with explicit assumptions. Mechanism-based sector assessments are distinguished from measured sector profit rankings.

This design can establish that prices, flows and financial indicators changed, and demonstrate how those changes can affect a business. It cannot allocate every price increase to the war. Domestic policy, currency movements, refinery outages, monetary conditions, demand and other conflicts also matter. Establishing a causal percentage would require a credible comparison with what would have happened without the conflict.

3. Establishing the market shock

3.1 The monthly record shows escalation, partial relief and renewed pressure

The international price record is not a continuous upward line. Crude rose sharply in March and April, eased into June and July, then increased again. Finished fuels followed their own paths. By September, diesel’s increase from February was substantially larger than Brent’s.

Table 1. Monthly spot-price observations, 2026

Sources: EIA monthly Brent, conventional gasoline, ultra-low-sulfur diesel and jet fuel series. Percentage changes are Lenz calculations. “Petrol” is used for gasoline in the narrative.

Finished-fuel benchmarks rose more than crudeMonthly indices, January-September 2026; February = 100. International wholesale comparators.

Sources: Lenz indices from U.S. Energy Information Administration [1]; U.S. Energy Information Administration [2]; U.S. Energy Information Administration [3]; U.S. Energy Information Administration [4]; Europe Brent: U.S. Energy Information Administration [1]; US Gulf petrol: U.S. Energy Information Administration [2]; US Gulf diesel: U.S. Energy Information Administration [3]; US Gulf jet fuel: U.S. Energy Information Administration [4]

View data

month	Europe Brent	US Gulf petrol	US Gulf diesel	US Gulf jet fuel
Jan 2026	93.95	103.85	91.7	89.79
Feb 2026	100	100	100	100
Mar 2026	145.48	145.34	166.46	163.44
Apr 2026	165.45	164.13	170.07	173.65
May 2026	151.14	176.85	167.77	174.31
Jun 2026	120.47	152.58	145.83	134.48
Jul 2026	118.15	166.01	168.25	150.44
Aug 2026	128.48	168.34	182.8	164.63
Sep 2026	161.04	189.06	212.25	193.99

Figure 1. Indexing makes changes comparable without suggesting that barrels and gallons are the same unit. The fuel benchmarks are US Gulf Coast wholesale observations; they are not African or MENA pump prices.

As of the research cutoff, the latest observation visible in EIA’s daily table was 6 October: Brent USD125.44/barrel, petrol USD3.564/US gallon, diesel USD4.565 and jet fuel USD4.342. These values show continuing elevated prices, with daily movement differing across products. They are not October monthly averages. EIA daily table.

3.2 The price of crude cannot explain the entire price of diesel

Converting diesel to a barrel-equivalent unit makes the divergence tangible. One barrel contains 42 US gallons. February’s diesel benchmark therefore equalled USD96.68 per barrel equivalent, against Brent at USD70.89. September’s equivalent was USD205.21, against Brent at USD114.16.

The resulting indicative diesel–Brent differential widened from USD25.79 to USD91.05 per barrel equivalent. The calculation describes a market-price gap. It is not a refinery’s accounting margin: the two benchmarks have different delivery locations and specifications, and it omits yields, other products, transport, operating expenses and financing.

Diesel, crude and the indicative price differentialUSD per barrel equivalent. The differential is not an audited refining margin.

Sources: Lenz calculation from U.S. Energy Information Administration [1]; U.S. Energy Information Administration [3]; Europe Brent: U.S. Energy Information Administration [1]; Diesel: 42 US gallons: U.S. Energy Information Administration [3]

View data

month	Europe Brent	Diesel: 42 US gallons	Diesel minus Brent
February 2026	$70.89	$96.68	$25.79
September 2026	$114.16	$205.21	$91.05

Figure 2. Lenz calculation from EIA prices: differential = 42 × diesel price per US gallon − Brent price per barrel. The differential series cannot be assigned wholly to refining profit or a war-risk premium.

The implication is narrower and stronger than a claim about profiteering: an explanation based solely on the crude-price increase is incomplete. A business buying diesel is exposed to the market for a usable refined product, which can remain constrained even when additional crude becomes available.

4. Why recovering oil exports do not restore the old price

4.1 “Oil is flowing again” requires a definition

Different recovery claims can all be accurate while describing different things: crude rather than products; regional exports rather than Strait transit; a short-term estimate rather than a monthly average; or barrels loaded rather than barrels delivered.

Table 2. Physical-market observations that should not be merged into one flow series

Sources: IEA physical-market commentary, Kpler, IEA September Oil Market Report. Kpler’s approximate product shortfall is retained as approximate; it is not used to invent an exact prewar baseline.

The appropriate conclusion is that a recovery in crude does not establish a recovery in all energy supply. The apparent discrepancy largely dissolves when the product, route and date are specified.

4.2 Flow recovery does not replace the stock already consumed

Inventories are the buffer between temporary disruption and immediate scarcity. The IEA estimated that observed global oil stocks fell 507 million barrels between February and August, despite releases of more than 300 million barrels of emergency stocks. A return of incoming shipments to a previous daily rate does not automatically rebuild that buffer. IEA.

Consider a wholesaler that normally receives and sells 100 units each week while holding 200 units in reserve. If a disruption consumes the reserve, a return to 100 weekly deliveries restores the normal flow but leaves no cushion. Rebuilding stock requires deliveries above current sales, lower sales, or time. This arithmetic applies even before considering uncertainty about the next disruption.

4.3 Delivery can remain costly, and the recovery can be interrupted

EIA’s October outlook estimated Middle Eastern crude production shut-ins at 10.9 million barrels/day in May, 5.8 million in August and 4.8 million in September. It connected renewed September pressure to the attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West bypass pipeline, elevated transport and insurance costs, longer routes and depleted inventories. These are estimates of crude production, separate from IEA’s broader oil-flow measures. EIA October outlook.

There is also a time difference between a loading and an available retail litre. Crude must move, be processed into the required product, enter storage and reach the distributor. Recovery at an upstream checkpoint cannot instantly normalize every downstream invoice.

The explanation consequently has several parts: crude and products recover at different rates; previous inventory losses persist; moving a barrel can remain costly; and fresh disruptions can reverse progress. Russian refining disruption also compounded the diesel shortage identified by the IEA. The conflict is central to this market episode, but it is not the only influence on product prices. IEA September report.

5. Nigeria: the limits of domestic refining as price protection

5.1 Domestic supply is dominant

The April NMDPRA factsheet recorded 17.96 million barrels of domestic crude and 0.41 million barrels of imported crude delivered to domestic refineries, a total of 18.37 million. Domestic crude therefore represented 97.8% of those deliveries. This covers all Nigerian refineries, rather than Dangote alone. Reported domestic petrol supply was 40.7 million litres/day, alongside 3.7 million litres/day of imports: a domestic share of approximately 91.7%. NMDPRA April factsheet.

Those are substantial domestic supply shares, rather than a measured decline in import dependence over the war window. They also show why “not a single dependency on the outside world” is too strong a premise. Some physical imports remained. More fundamentally, physical origin and economic pricing are different forms of dependence.

Domestic shares of Nigerian refinery inputs and petrol supplyApril 2026 observations; all domestic refineries. These are not October supply estimates.

Source: Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority [5]

View data

measure	Domestic share
Crude delivered to refineries	97.8%
Domestic petrol supply	91.7%

Selected Dangote petrol gantry announcementsNGN per litre. Discrete dated wholesale quotes, not monthly averages or pump prices.

Source: Channels Television [6]; BusinessDay [7]; Channels Television [8]; Premium Times [9]; TheCable [10]; S&P Global [11]; Legit.ng [12]; Punch [13]; BusinessDay [14]

View data

date	Gantry quote
2026-02-10	774
2026-03-21	1,275
2026-03-27	1,200
2026-05-30	1,250
2026-06-16	1,175
2026-07-02	1,075
2026-08-05	1,165
2026-09-12	1,350
2026-09-21	1,325

Figure 3. Supply shares refer to April. The gantry chart uses discrete dated announcements; it does not interpolate a daily history or suggest that April’s supply shares necessarily remained unchanged in October.

5.2 Nigerian crude still has a commercial alternative use

A barrel produced in Nigeria can be sold domestically or exported. A commercial supplier compares what it receives under those alternatives, subject to contracts and policy. Refining the barrel locally removes stages of an import supply chain; it does not make the barrel economically free of its external market value.

In an early-March statement, Dangote said that naira-paid crude was priced using international benchmarks plus a premium, and cited USD3–6/barrel premiums for Nigerian grades. This is a company statement about that period, rather than an audited current cost schedule. It nevertheless directly challenges the assumption that payment in naira means a permanently fixed domestic input price. Reported company statement.

Currency of payment answers how the invoice is settled. The price formula answers how much is owed. A contract can be settled in naira while retaining exposure to a dollar benchmark and exchange-rate conversion. Refining also involves equipment, finance and other commercial inputs whose costs need not be wholly domestic. This report does not estimate their individual contribution to the petrol price.

5.3 The observed price history shows relief as well as escalation

Table 3. Selected Dangote petrol gantry announcements

Sources: February, 21 March, 27 March, May, June, July, August, 12 September, 21 September. These are selected wholesale announcements, not exhaustive daily prices or monthly national retail averages. The September endpoint is the latest company announcement verified for this report, rather than a claim that every October transaction occurred at that price.

S&P reported that the competition authority challenged the pace of reductions after crude eased. Dangote explained that its June landed feedstock cost, including freight, averaged approximately USD95/barrel and that inventory costs preceded the current market price. The July reduction followed. Both the regulatory challenge and the company’s cost explanation belong in the record. Neither establishes an audited decomposition of the selling price. S&P Global.

Historical inventory can explain a lag in price reductions, but it cannot by itself prove that any particular markup is justified. Equally, a higher petrol price cannot by itself establish a higher refinery profit. Feedstock costs, operating costs, other product revenues and financing must also be known.

5.4 Retail evidence confirms a burden without measuring the refinery’s entire effect

NBS national petrol averages rose from ₦1,051.47/litre in February to ₦1,288.54 in March, ₦1,532.93 in April and ₦1,596.25 in May. The May increase from February was 51.8%. May was the latest observation listed in the accessible official catalogue at the cutoff. No later national average is invented here. NBS February, March, April, May, catalogue.

NMDPRA’s separate April city-price sample was materially below the NBS national and some state averages. Coverage differs, but the gap has not been fully reconciled using matched outlet data. The series are therefore kept separate.

The evidence shows that predominantly domestic supply did not prevent a substantial price rise. It does not show that domestic refining provided no protection. That claim requires the unobserved comparison: availability and prices in a Nigeria without the refinery during the same disruption. Local refining may have reduced shortages, freight requirements or the scale of the price increase even while prices rose.

6. Different domestic prices, different distribution of the burden

International benchmarks transmit through national rules, currencies, taxes, supply chains and commercial contracts. The observed retail increase need not match the global percentage change.

Table 4. Selected domestic fuel comparisons

Sources: NBS and May release; Kenya February comparison and September EPRA notice reporting; UAE February and October; Egypt official announcement and before/after reporting. Changes are calculated within each currency. Different endpoints and transaction rules prevent a clean ranking of national protection.

Policy can shift the payer without removing the underlying cost. In March, Egypt’s government said subsidized Baladi bread would remain 20 piasters per loaf, with the state absorbing additional production costs from the diesel increase for affected bakeries. A stable consumer price can therefore coexist with a higher fiscal cost. It need not imply that the energy shock vanished. Egypt State Information Service.

For analysis, the important distinction is between a cost being reduced and a cost being reassigned. A supplier concession, budget transfer or smaller retail margin can cushion a business. Whether that protection is adequate and sustainable requires separate evidence about its size, duration and funding.

7. Making the shock personal: the business owner’s accounts

7.1 More expensive inputs can consume a disproportionate share of profit

Revenue pays for costs before it becomes profit. When the original profit is small, an additional cost can remove a large share of that residual.

Consider an illustrative Kenyan transport business with monthly revenue of KSh1,000,000, operating costs of KSh900,000, and fuel accounting for KSh200,000 of those costs. Its original operating profit is KSh100,000. Applying Nairobi’s observed diesel increase of 30.815%, while holding fuel quantity, sales and other costs constant, adds approximately KSh61,631 to the fuel bill.

Table 5. Illustrative monthly operating account

The fuel price rose by approximately 31%; operating profit fell by approximately 62%. Nothing in the example requires fewer orders. The pressure appears in what remains after fulfilling them.

Illustrative transporter: operating profit before and afterKSh per month. Same KSh1m sales, fuel quantity and other costs; diesel +30.8%. Hypothetical firm.

Source: Lenz illustration; observed diesel price inputs PwC Kenya [15]; The Star [16]

View data

scenario	Operating profit
Before	100,000
After; no repricing	38,369

Profit sensitivity to fuel intensity and cost recoveryShare of original absolute profit remaining; 10% baseline margin; unchanged volume and other costs. Illustration.

Source: Lenz illustration; observed diesel price inputs PwC Kenya [15]; The Star [16]

View data

fuel_share	No extra cost recovered	Half recovered	All recovered
5% of revenue	84.6%	92.3%	100%
10% of revenue	69.2%	84.6%	100%
20% of revenue	38.4%	69.2%	100%
30% of revenue	7.6%	53.8%	100%
40% of revenue	-23.3%	38.4%	100%

Figure 4. Hypothetical business accounts, using an observed fuel-price change. The sensitivity chart assumes an initial operating profit of 10% of revenue. It varies fuel intensity and the share of additional cost recovered from customers, with unchanged volume, non-fuel costs and financing.

To preserve the original absolute operating profit, this firm would need approximately 6.16% more revenue at unchanged volume and costs. Preserving the original 10% margin requires approximately 6.85% more revenue. Neither result guarantees that customers accept the increase or that collection is prompt. If volume falls after repricing, the account must be recalculated.

7.2 The business may need more cash even when its profit is protected

An owner can maintain a margin while facing a larger funding requirement. A distributor buying the same quantity of stock at a higher price must pay more before the sale. If customers pay later, the distributor finances the gap.

Table 6. Additional invoice cash for the same 10,000 litres

Lenz calculations from the prices in Tables 3–4. These are fixed-volume invoice illustrations, not estimates of average firm consumption. Each price retains its original transaction stage.

The working-capital relationship is:

Operating working capital = inventory + trade receivables − trade payables.

If inventory costs rise, receivables take longer to collect, and suppliers demand faster payment, the business can face pressure from all three terms. Conversely, customer prepayments and supplier credit can protect it.

To separate the mechanisms, consider another illustrative distributor. Daily inventory purchases rise from 100,000 to 150,000 currency units, and it continues holding 30 days of inventory. The inventory investment rises from 3.0 million to 4.5 million: 1.5 million more cash tied up. Separately, a move from 30 to 45 collection days on unchanged daily credit sales of 100,000 adds another 1.5 million to receivables. With unchanged payables, the combined funding requirement rises by 3.0 million. These are assumptions, not observed regional averages.

The cash requirement may be funded by a loan, retained earnings, personal savings or supplier credit. Each choice changes who bears the cost and when. A profitable invoice is of limited comfort if the owner cannot finance the inputs needed to issue it.

7.3 The household and the business often share the same buffer

For a small owner-operated firm, reduced business profit can mean reduced household spending before it becomes an unpaid loan. The owner may postpone an equipment purchase, reduce drawings or consume reserves while keeping the business open. These are plausible adjustment channels, not measured behaviors for every firm in this report.

This distinction matters for the word “affected.” A business can remain active and current on its debts while leaving its owner with less income or less capacity to withstand the next shock. It can also adapt successfully and emerge stronger. Direct accounts are needed to distinguish these outcomes.

8. What business surveys and banking data actually say

8.1 The activity evidence is heterogeneous

Table 7. Headline PMI observations

Sources: Stanbic IBTC September release; Emirates NBD analysis of regional surveys. Fifty is the unchanged threshold. The distance from 50 is not a percentage change in output or profit. Survey coverage differs across economies.

Business activity diverged across the same shockHeadline PMI, August and September 2026. Above 50 indicates monthly improvement, not profit growth.

Source: Stanbic IBTC Bank [17]; Emirates NBD Research [18]

View data

economy	August	September
Nigeria	54.3	56.4
UAE	55.3	55.3
Saudi Arabia	53.8	55.3
Egypt	49.6	47.2

Figure 5. A common external shock did not produce a uniform activity result. Cross-country PMI comparisons are directional; their panels and sector coverage are not identical.

Nigeria’s September release reported activity growth in all four broad categories. Fuel and transport featured in cost explanations. Purchase and staff cost inflation reached three-month highs, while overall input-cost inflation eased to a seven-month low. Hiring was modest and often temporary; just over 24% of surveyed firms increased selling prices. This is growth accompanied by continuing cost adjustment, rather than evidence of universal deterioration. Stanbic IBTC.

In the regional analysis, UAE selling prices rose at the fastest pace since May 2011, alongside stronger orders. Saudi domestic demand strengthened while export orders fell for a seventh month. Egyptian firms raised prices despite weaker orders. The distinction is whether demand withstands repricing, not simply whether a higher price is announced. These survey co-movements do not isolate the cause of each order change. Emirates NBD Research.

8.2 Nigeria’s credit stock recovered partly, but remained below February

The CBN’s publicly embedded money-and-credit dataset records the following nominal private-sector credit stocks. The original unit is million naira; values below are converted to trillions.

Table 8. Nigeria: outstanding credit to the private sector

Source: CBN money-and-credit page and its public data endpoint, accessed 12 October. August was 4.9% above April, but 10.6% below February; calculations use unrounded observations.

This is a stock, not the flow of newly approved SME loans. Repayments, write-offs, exchange-rate valuation, classification changes and new lending can all affect it. The table does not identify which explains the February–April movement. It cannot establish that the war caused a lending contraction, or that the average Nigerian entrepreneur received 10.6% less credit.

GTCO illustrates a separate institutional outcome: group net loans rose only 0.5% between December and June, while deposits rose 10.3%. H1 profit before tax was ₦603.03 billion, up 0.4% year on year. The group has operations beyond Nigeria and non-bank businesses. This combination demonstrates that deposit growth, loan growth and earnings need not move together; it does not prove that banks deliberately withheld SME credit. GTCO audited-results release.

8.3 Kenya provides genuine counterevidence to a generalized banking crisis

Table 9. Kenya: system-level banking observations

Sources: CBK June credit survey and 7 October MPC release. The October release does not explicitly specify the annual basis of its credit-growth statistic; this report retains the source’s “reported lending growth” description. The average lending rate is not a quote available to every small firm.

Nigeria: outstanding private-sector creditNGN trillion, nominal stock. March is missing and omitted, not zero. This is not new SME disbursement.

Source: Central Bank of Nigeria [21]; Central Bank of Nigeria [22]

View data

month	Private-sector credit
2026-01	93.74
2026-02	94.61
2026-04	80.59
2026-05	81.04
2026-06	83.26
2026-07	83.43
2026-08	84.55

Kenya: banking-system non-performing loan ratioMarch, June and September 2026. Loan portfolio measure, not median business income.

Source: Central Bank of Kenya [19]; Central Bank of Kenya [20]

View data

period	NPL ratio
2026-03-31	15.6%
2026-06-30	14.8%
2026-09	13.9%

Figure 6. The two banking charts describe different measures and populations. Nigeria’s March observation is missing and is not interpolated. Kenya’s September value comes from a later release than the June credit survey.

Kenya’s June NPL improvement was partly a denominator effect: gross loans increased while gross NPL balances fell 1.3%. Nonetheless, the subsequent decline to 13.9% is meaningful counterevidence to the proposition that all borrowers were deteriorating. It may reflect successful adaptation, stronger borrowers, improved collection or other portfolio changes. The aggregate data do not assign their contributions. CBK credit survey.

The July market-perceptions survey described expected borrowing demand primarily for working capital, inventories and cash-flow management, alongside expansion, equipment and digital investment. Some firms preferred internal funding. Higher demand for credit can therefore finance a more expensive operating cycle, productive growth, or both. CBK July perceptions survey.

8.4 MENA bank earnings can be strong alongside divergent local business conditions

Table 10. Selected bank results and their boundaries

Sources: Emirates NBD H1 announcement and CIB company earnings release. H1 and Q2 accounts predate the September surveys; they are not synchronous tests of September business profitability.

The contrast between CIB’s earnings and Egypt’s September contraction is not a contradiction. They concern different entities, periods and measures. Bank income can arise from existing assets, investments, fees, trading and lending to clients whose results differ from those of a neighborhood retailer.

8.5 The strongest interpretation is resilience with unequal exposure

Taken together, the banking data show that the shock did not produce a uniform collapse in credit or loan performance. That finding should stand on its own. It should not be explained away solely as delayed recognition of inevitable defaults.

At the same time, profitable banks cannot establish that owners retained more income. Owners can absorb higher costs before missing payments, and firms outside formal banking relationships are weakly represented in bank statistics. These are measurement boundaries, rather than proof of hidden losses.

The appropriate answer to “are businesses better off?” is therefore conditional. Some are expanding and investing. Others face weaker demand, expensive inputs or larger funding needs. To estimate the average or median net effect requires firm-level margins, receivables, borrowing terms and owner income—not a single banking indicator.

9. Does the burden depend on industry?

Industry matters because it influences energy use, delivery dependence and contractual arrangements. It does not determine the result on its own. Two transporters can have different outcomes if one has a fuel-adjustment clause and prompt payment while the other has a fixed contract and delayed collection.

Table 11. Mechanism-based assessment of business exposure

This table is an analytical framework, not a measured league table of realized industry profits. The sources assembled here do not provide comparable SME margin changes for all these sectors.

An important non-fuel channel reinforces the point. The IEA reports that roughly half of global seaborne sulphur trade passes through Hormuz. Sulphur supplies sulphuric acid used in fertilizer and mineral processing. Disruption therefore transmits into production that may appear distant from petrol markets. For African fertilizer and mineral-processing businesses, an input map can reveal exposure that a fuel-only analysis misses. No common profit-loss percentage for those firms is estimated here. IEA critical-minerals outlook.

Technology affects the mechanism rather than conferring automatic immunity. Better routing can reduce litres per delivery; inventory visibility can reduce unnecessary stock; electronic collection can shorten receivable days. A software firm can nevertheless be affected through its clients’ budgets, its own power supply or imported service costs. The value of an intervention must be tested against the firm’s actual cost and cash cycle.

The general relationship can be expressed without pretending to estimate its coefficients:

Pressure on a firm rises with exposed input costs and funding duration, and falls with cost recovery, operational adaptation and reliable finance.

A sector label is the starting point for investigation. Fuel share, contract terms, payment timing and customer response make the assessment specific enough to be useful.

10. Who gains, and what can actually be demonstrated?

Higher prices redistribute income, but a larger invoice is not equivalent to a larger profit. A credible winners analysis must examine realized results and the costs or risks accompanying them.

Table 12. Documented corporate outcomes during the disruption

Sources: Seplat interim report, Frontline results, Shell quarterly release, Aramco results. Company periods and reporting measures are deliberately retained rather than combined into a synthetic windfall total.

The clearest beneficiaries are specific owners of productive or transport assets that remained available when market prices increased. Their gains need not imply that every oil company, shipping firm or oil-exporting state benefited overall. Lost output, security costs, repairs, financing and domestic economic losses can offset stronger prices.

Some other beneficiaries are plausible but unproven in this evidence. Traders may earn more from volatility; an inventory owner may gain from holding stock purchased cheaply; insurers may collect larger premiums. None of these facts would alone demonstrate higher net profit after hedging, replacement cost or claims. The report does not assign verified windfalls to these groups.

Dangote also cannot be classified as a proven profit winner merely from higher gantry prices. An audited refinery cost-and-margin bridge was not available. The market mechanism can justify scrutiny of price formation without replacing that missing evidence with an accusation.

11. Findings, alternative explanations and the next empirical test

11.1 What the analytical case establishes

The price record establishes a large increase in fuel benchmarks and a wider diesel–crude differential. Physical-market evidence establishes that recovery differed by product and route. Nigeria establishes that predominantly domestic supply can coexist with higher prices. The operating-account calculations demonstrate that thin margins magnify the effect of an input-price increase and that unchanged quantities can require more working capital.

Business surveys and banking results qualify the outcome. Several economies continued expanding; Kenya’s aggregate loan performance improved; corporate lending also funded capital expenditure. The evidence supports unequal adjustment, rather than a general claim that ordinary commerce stopped functioning.

11.2 What remains unresolved

Currency movements, domestic tax and price policy, interest rates, non-war refinery outages, other supply disruptions and changes in demand are alternative or additional explanations. They belong in any subsequent causal model. Their existence does not negate the observed shock; it limits how confidently its effects can be attributed to one cause.

11.3 A firm-level study would test the central claim directly

A next-stage study should follow the same businesses across several periods and distinguish their energy intensity, pricing arrangements and payment cycles. At minimum it should collect revenue and quantities sold; fuel and other input expenditure; gross and operating margins; inventory days; collection and supplier-payment days; loan applications, approvals and effective costs; and owner drawings.

Those observations would distinguish more sales from higher prices, productive borrowing from costlier inventories, and maintained debt service from improved owner wellbeing. Comparing firms with different pre-conflict fuel intensity or repricing clauses would offer a more informative test than treating an entire national economy as equally exposed. A causal design would still need credible assumptions about comparison groups and other changes occurring at the same time.

For Lenz, that creates a coherent continuation of the series: investigate how an external shock enters a firm’s accounts, which institutions or contracts absorb it, and how much of the final adjustment lands on the owner or customer.

Appendix A. Calculation notes and reproducibility

Rounding occurs after calculations. Charts use full precision where available. Missing credit data are not interpolated. No approximate Kpler percentage is converted into an exact product-flow baseline.

This export contains nine native chart blocks with inline CSV data, replacing the six image figures and their compound panels, plus four stats blocks containing 13 numerical cards. Ordinary Markdown tables are retained. Percent-format chart values are stored as fractions: 0.978 displays as approximately 97.8%; 1 represents 100%. Monetary series retain their original currencies; only US-dollar series use format: usd. Missing March credit is omitted rather than treated as zero. Chart and stats source keys correspond to the IDs and linked URLs in the source register below. Stats cards for levels omit trend arrows unless a comparable earlier observation is provided. Illustrative cards remain explicitly labelled. Supporting machine-readable datasets and calculation scripts remain available in the separate research bundle. This report’s audit uses the primary Kpler regional definitions in place of the earlier secondary Strait-only comparison.

Appendix B. Source register

All web evidence was accessed or rechecked for the 12 October 2026 cutoff. Observation periods, rather than access dates, determine comparisons. “Primary” includes a company’s own disclosure and does not mean its interpretation is independently audited.

Conclusion

The price of a war an ordinary business is not fighting is paid through its operating account and its cash cycle. A delivered litre becomes dearer; the same inventory requires more money; a fixed contract becomes less profitable; a late-paying customer becomes harder to finance.

The evidence explains why apparently reassuring developments do not settle those questions. Domestic refining changes physical supply dependence without necessarily disconnecting prices from international markets. Recovering crude exports do not restore every refined product or rebuild inventories immediately. Strong bank results and improving loan performance do not measure what a business owner retains after paying costs.

The evidence also sets an essential boundary: this was not a uniform collapse across African and MENA businesses. Expansion, investment and adaptation continued in several of the economies studied. Some asset owners benefited from higher realized prices or freight earnings. Other firms were more exposed to expensive inputs, weak demand or funding gaps. The median owner’s net income effect remains unmeasured.

The report’s central finding is therefore about the distribution of exposure. Businesses that can retain customers while repricing, collect promptly and finance their operating cycle have greater room to adapt. Businesses that must purchase expensive inputs before receiving payment, under inflexible prices and thin margins, bear more pressure. Understanding that difference is what turns a global oil headline into a useful explanation of local economic life.