The increase in international oil prices after Saudi Arabia's closure of a strategic pipeline could soon be felt in Morocco as higher fuel prices, warns energy expert Amine Bennouna, in a country that imports most of its energy.
Saudi Arabia shut down its East-West pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz after the pipeline was damaged, pushing international oil prices up, and renewing concerns for oil-importing countries, like Morocco.
Morocco imports close to 88 percent of its energy requirements, Bennouna said, revising an earlier number that is commonly quoted as 94 percent. He noted that the 94 percent figure was outdated. "Thank God, the numbers have reached 88 percent as of now," he said, referring to 2025 data.
Bennouna noted that Morocco is seventh from the bottom in the world in energy dependency. "The situation is not good," he stated, "Energy consumption is increasing domestically at a rate of 3 to 4 percent a year. The country is highly exposed to the price volatility of fuels, especially oil-based fuels."
In addition to the headline dependency numbers, Bennouna highlighted a structural change in refining economics. Diesel prices, he noted, in the spring of 2022 when oil traded at around $100 a barrel, were around $1,200 per ton. In 2026, with oil prices again topping $100 a barrel, diesel prices have surged past $1,400 and are approaching $1,500 per ton.
"This means the profits generated from refining this oil have doubled," Bennouna said. He believes that the economic argument for not reopening a domestic refinery, such as the mothballed Samir plant, is no longer valid in light of the wide margins between crude and refined product prices.
Bennouna said the growing deficit is placing more stress on Morocco's energy shortfall and, therefore, on its overall trade gap, which has been swelling consistently this year. "The same energy deficit we had four years ago is much more expensive now," he said, "because of oil and because of refining."
He criticized the response of domestic fuel distributors to price fluctuations. Referencing an Iranian strike in late February that pushed world prices higher on the following Monday, Bennouna said that Morocco had at the time about 50 days of fuel in reserve, according to Energy Ministry data, but distributors increased prices right away, first on March 16, then again about two weeks later.
Bennouna countered by pointing out distributors' tendency to cite "FIFO," first-in, first-out inventory accounting, to justify waiting to pass on price declines to consumers. "This logic isn't applied when prices are rising, only when they're falling," he noted.
He also drew a contrast between the impact on everyday consumers and on commercial users like taxi and transport companies, which, he said, often get state subsidies to cover rising prices, with real trade-offs in government budgets. "That spending could have gone toward building hospitals," he said.
Bennouna added that the current situation ultimately signals more expensive fuel for Moroccan consumers in the short term, as the impact of the Saudi pipeline shutdown works its way through global oil markets.
Morocco has not had a domestic refinery since the closure in 2015 of its only one, the Samir plant at Mohammedia, in the course of its bankruptcy. The country has since then been completely reliant on imports of both crude and refined products. Reopening the facility has been much debated by successive governments since then. But a decade on, the plant is still silent, leaving Morocco's fuel supply chain exposed to exactly the kind of international price shocks now unfolding.
