SSA oil exporters: Diverse impact of higher oil prices following Iran war

• We update our estimates of the current account impact of higher oil prices across six SSA oil producers

• The impact varies widely: big gains for REPCON, Gabon; mild gains for Angola, Nigeria; negligible impact for Cameroon

• Modest current account losses for Ghana which is now a net energy importer

  
  

We set out our thoughts on the impact of higher oil prices on the current accounts of various emerging and frontier markets in our macro note on 6 March. In this note, we look at the SSA oil producers which have eurobonds in more detail, refreshing our calculations and updating our estimates for the current account impact of higher oil prices using more recent data from national sources where available.

Specifically, we cover Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, and the Republic of Congo. All are oil producers and exporters, and in some cases energy production includes gas. Some also import oil and gas too. We therefore focus on net energy exports to get a more rounded picture of their sensitivity to higher oil prices (and assuming some correlation between oil and gas prices). Interestingly, we note that Ghana was a net energy exporter until 2022 (under World Bank WDI data), but it has since switched to being a net energy importer according to more recent official BOP data, so is unusual in this group. We include it anyway. We however exclude Mozambique, also a net energy exporter (coal and gas), as it is now more a special (distressed) case (for more detail, see here).