Brent cruised to $109.18 on Sunday, its first triple-digit print in more than five years and a 25 per-cent leap in a single day, as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz neared a stand-off and Tehran hit back at ships trying to squeeze through the chokepoint.
The surge—2020’s biggest daily jump—lands smack on Nigeria’s ledgers. With Brent now $44 above the 2026 budget benchmark of $64.85, Africa’s largest exporter can expect fatter oil receipts, beefier FX reserves and an easier path to fiscal consolidation.
But the party hasn’t reached the filling stations. In the past week Dangote Refinery and retailers nationwide have lifted pump prices twice: petrol that sold for ₦870/litre before the strikes is now ₦1,100/litre almost everywhere, thanks to the country’s stubborn reliance on imported fuel. Higher transport and power bills are already rippling through food stalls and bus fares, piling pressure on households still absorbing last year’s reforms.
“The global economy still runs on Middle-East barrels and gas funnelled through Hormuz,” JPMorgan chief economist Bruce Kasman told Reuters. He sees a short-term spike to $120 before cooler heads prevail, but warns oil could linger at $80 through mid-2026 without a political fix. That could shave 0.6 percentage points off world growth in the first half of the year and nudge consumer prices higher.
If the strait stays hot, Lagos earns more crude dollars yet burns more naira at the pumps—a windfall that still feels like a tax to most Nigerians.
