Carbon Credit Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa: Identification, Evaluation, and Implementation (February 2025)
4th-6th February 2025
Course consultant : James McCullagh, CITAC Executive Director
Language: French
Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Oil Product Trading & Operations (May 2025)
19-23 May 2025
This five day course (in french) will cover and discuss the following topics:
- New market dynamics
- Impact of Dangote refinery
- Effect of new exchange rate regime
- Rewiring of smuggled product
- Introduction of new product specifications
- Pricing in oil markets
- Benchmarks and differentials
- Price makers and price takers
- Trading oil
- Market participants
- Oil contracts and clauses
- Product quality
- Deal negotiations
- Refining industry
- Refining economics
- The operations process
- Documentation
- Role obligations and rights
- Letter of credit
- Letter of indemnity
- Cargo inspection
- Areas of contention
- Breach
- Dispute resolution
- The shipping market
- Chartering
- Freight costing and worldscale rates
- Vessel vetting and nomination
- AFRA rates and demurrage
This course is designed for those interested in gaining a thorough understanding of the
International oil trading business.
Course consultant : Christopher Heilpern, Business and Training consultant
Language: English
Accra, Ghana
Solving Oil Supply Chain Challenges (June 2025)
9-12 June 2025
Intense competition and razor thin margins put supply chain efficiency at the core of a profitable supply and distribution
business.
CITAC’s course ‘Solving Oil Product Supply Chain Challenges’ introduces analytical methods for identifying areas for improvement as well as covering industry best practise.
During this 4 day course, participants cover topics such as risk assessment, optimal product sourcing, contractual technicalities, KPI analysis and more, with case studies included to contextualise the knowledge.
- Assessment of the Market
– International & African market developments
– A focus on African oil product supply & demand
– Oil market infrastructure in Africa
– Key market players & strategies in Africa
– Most common supply chains - Supply Chain Strength
– Supply & demand balancing
– Volume vs margin
– Demand planning
– Inventory optimisation
– Knowing your costs, capacity and capability
– Risk assessment
– Scheduling and replenishment planning
– Profitability analysis
- Supply Planning – Product Sourcing
- Manufacturing : How each product is made / Key product specs & what in influences them
- Introduction to refinery margins
- Imports: pricing and freight : Price references, base quotes & value of premia-discounts / Pricing mechanisms / Introduction to world scale, premia & shipping freight
- Imports: contractual terms / CIF, CFR, FOB, DET / Title risk / Demurage / Quality & Quantity
- Optimal Sourcing
- Sales and Operations Planning
- Purpose & value
- Key process ingredients
- Ownership & stakeholders
- Key activities
- Design & work flow
- IT and information sharing
- Metrics & KPIs
- Linkage to business & strategic planning
- Roll up to global S&OP
- Strategic Impact
- Supply chain SWOT
- Competitor analysis
- Customer value proposition
- Portfolio concept
- Case Study/Simulation
- Gap analysis
- Building a benefits case
Your Course Consultant: Bruce Hutchison, Business and Training consultant
Language: English
Abuja, Nigeria
African Oil Market Fundamentals (October 2025)
7-9 October 2025
Major changes are sweeping across West Africa: exchange rate policy changes, subsidy withdrawal, specification changes and broader liberalisation. This course provides essential training to adapt to this new oil product trading environment. New opportunities are appearing – enhance your skillset to take advantage.
The course will cover:
- Global crude and products market fundamentals
- Crude and products markets overview: supply, demand, flows
- Supply and demand economics & market drivers
- Understanding the market players & their roles
- International trading of crude oil and crude evaluation
- A non-technical introduction to refining
- A Trader’s view of refining
- Quality differences around the globe
- African price structures in an international context
- Pricing in oil markets and price discovery
- Pricing agencies
- Benchmarks
- Contract types, incoterms and issues
– Spot / Term
– Spot / Forward
– FOB / CIF- Fixed versus floating
- African pricing: benchmarks & differentials
- Moving the oil (the shipping process)
- Vessel types and standards
- Understanding and calculating freight costs (Worldscale, Flat Rates, AFRA)
- Price structures & regulatory distortions
- Currency dynamics
- Import parity pricing vs downstream pricing
- Operations
- Chartering and charterparty basics
- African refining landscape: new additions, Dangote
- Importing products into Africa
- Vessel scheduling & demurrage
- Tenders (term and spot)
- Pricing options
- Credit
- Inland logistics
- Retail & B2B dynamics
Course consultant : Jeremy Parker, Senior consultant
Language: English / French
Cape Town, South Africa
10-11 April 2025
The African Downstream Landscape
Africa’s growing population and economies raise critical questions about how the rising energy requirements will be met.
Energy transition, LPG investment, refining, storage, product flows and supply chain challenges are issues that affect all players in the downstream.
CITAC’s interactive workshops on the African downstream energy sector will provide you with actionable insights and discussions to enable you to be an active player in these dynamic developments, discussing business cases and covering topical subjects such as:
- Supply chain management: how small changes can lead to large cash savings
- The future of African retail
- Asset utilisation in Sub Saharan Africa – where is investment needed?
- The financial realities of scaling Clean Cooking/LPG in Sub Saharan Africa
- Managing forex, credit and compliance risks in today’s West African trading environment
You will learn about refining, distribution, marketing and financing developments in the African downstream energy sector and will share experiences with pan-African and international companies.
The CITAC African Downstream Workshops offer you an unparalleled forum for networking with key players in the sector, including refiners, marketers, national oil companies, regulators, international and local traders, banks, storage and distribution companies, and more.
Are you looking for a particular type of training that’s not on our schedule?
We can collaborate with you to create a unique programme that contains all the answers to your questions about operating successfully in the African downstream energy market.
Our highly experienced trainers are able to create theoretical, practical and interactive training courses to build your team’s capacity. Our wide-ranging expertise covers Africa and global trading, operations, supply chain, LNG, shipping, finance and more.
We can also run any of our regular courses in-house or for you or to any location you choose or online, saving you time, money and travel.
Our areas of expertise :
- Fundamentals of Oil Trading
- Oil Trading Risk Management
- Oil Trading and Operations
- Product Supply Chain Challenges
- LNG
- Price Structures
- Freight Markets
- Demurrage