Mauritania Fuel Supply Tender Opens as Addax Energy’s Decade Monopoly Ends

Mauritania · ENERGY

Mauritania fuel supply is opening to competition for the first time in a decade: the state has launched an international tender for a six-month national contract, ending Addax Energy’s long monopoly as Middle East tensions push global fuel prices to multi-year highs.

Mauritania fuel supply is going out to bid. The National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) has launched an international tender for the supply of liquid petroleum products to the Mauritanian market for six months starting 3 December 2026, Mauritanian media reported on 6 to 8 September. The procedure marks the end of the contract held by Addax Energy, the trader that has dominated the country’s fuel imports for nearly a decade.

The tender that ends the Addax era

Addax Energy, present in Mauritania since 2016, won successive national tenders in 2018 and 2020 and kept deliveries flowing even in crisis periods. In 2020, when international prices spiked, the government cancelled a procurement procedure mid-stream and turned back to Addax on an emergency basis. The relationship was not always smooth: the trader had a running dispute with state electricity utility SOMELEC, among other tensions with Nouakchott.

The new tender is designed to draw in the industry’s largest players. Bidders must show proven experience in hydrocarbons supply, an average annual turnover of at least US$4 billion across the last three fiscal years, certified financial statements from an internationally recognised audit firm, and a clean record of judicial proceedings or sanctions that could impair their technical, environmental or financial capacity.

Companies can bid under two delivery modes: ITT, where the seller keeps responsibility and risk for the cargo, or DAP, where risk transfers to the buyer on arrival. A bidder may submit offers for one or both options.

Timeline, guarantees and a locked market

The tender dossier has been available since 5 September 2026 against a non-refundable payment of 400,000 ouguiyas (about US$1,000). Bidders can submit questions or proposed amendments until 15 days before the deadline. Bids close on 15 October 2026 at 10:00 universal time, with envelopes opened the same day at CNH headquarters in the presence of bidders’ representatives. The bid guarantee is set at US$1 million.

Competition, however, stops at the contract award. During the six-month contract period, imports of liquid petroleum products destined for the Mauritanian market outside the awarded contracts will be prohibited, with a single exception for the bunkering of ships on the high seas. The winner therefore still receives an exclusive national franchise, not a permanently liberalised import market.

In parallel, the CNH has launched a separate tender to select a maritime carrier for the cabotage of liquid petroleum products to the country’s southern zone, covering the same six-month period from 3 December 2026.

Why the state still spends billions on fuel

The tender comes as the government openly manages the fiscal cost of the global energy shock. After a Council of Ministers meeting on 1 April 2026, ministers said the state was subsidising fuel at roughly 12 percent of the national budget, with a full-year support envelope of about 150 billion ouguiyas (about US$375 million).

That briefing also set out the current administered price structure. Diesel rose about 10 percent to 563 ouguiyas per litre (about US$1.41), while gasoline rose 15.3 percent to 589.7 ouguiyas (about US$1.47). Even after the increase, the state pays 282 ouguiyas (about US$0.71) of every litre of diesel and 88 ouguiyas (about US$0.22) of every litre of gasoline. Ministers noted the diesel tonne in Europe cost US$1,366.75, or about 546,000 ouguiyas before transport and customs; conversions in this article follow that official briefing’s basis of roughly 400 ouguiyas per US dollar.

Cooking gas remains heavily supported: the large B12 bottle, which costs the state 9,011 ouguiyas, sells for 5,000 ouguiyas (about US$12.50). Electricity prices were explicitly left unchanged.

The social shield around the pump price

To cushion households, the government paired the April price adjustment with a package of nine social measures. The minimum wage rose from 45,000 to 50,000 ouguiyas a month (about US$125). Each of the 124,000 most disadvantaged families on the social register receives a cheque for 30,000 ouguiyas (about US$75), and roughly 50,000 civil and military public employees earning less than 130,000 ouguiyas a month (about US$325) receive 45,000 ouguiyas (about US$112).

In a solidarity gesture, the president cut his own salary by one million ouguiyas (about US$2,500) and ministers followed until the end of the year. The government also banned urban vehicle traffic between midnight and 5 a.m. to ration fuel, exempting vital services, cyclists, pedestrians and motorcycle deliveries, and vowed tougher action against smuggling of subsidised fuel across borders.

Officials stressed that Mauritania’s roughly 10 percent pump-price increase compares with rises of 35 to 40 percent elsewhere in the sub-region, and that administered prices for public transport and staple foods would be policed to prevent spillover.

Gas money and the bigger map

The fuel-market reset lands as Mauritania consolidates its new status as a gas exporter from the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project, covered in our earlier briefing on Mauritania’s gas, iron ore and hydrogen strategy. Export revenues give Nouakchott more fiscal room to sustain subsidies through the current oil shock, which has pushed Brent crude above US$105.

Strategically, the tender is being read across the region as a test of whether a small frontier state can use competition among global traders to cut its import bill without losing supply security. It fits the pattern tracked in Africa: The New Scramble, where energy contracts increasingly double as geopolitical alignment.

What to watch next

First, the 15 October bid deadline: how many of the global trading houses that clear the US$4 billion turnover bar actually submit offers. Second, the transition on 3 December, when the new supplier takes over a market where no alternative imports are permitted. Third, whether Addax Energy bids to defend its franchise, and how the SOMELEC dispute figures in its position.

For households and businesses, the decisive variable remains the international price. A tender won at the top of a price spike could lock in costly supply just as the market turns, while the state subsidy envelope, already near 150 billion ouguiyas (about US$375 million), has limited room to absorb another leg up.

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