SMB, the Abidjan bitumen refiner, saw profit fall 45% in the first quarter of 2026 to 1.49 billion FCFA ($2.7 million) from 2.71 billion FCFA ($4.9 million) a year earlier -- a result shaped by two distinct events that arrived simultaneously and reinforced each other.
The first was planned: SMB carried out a mandatory quinquennial maintenance shutdown of its refining units in February and March, the first such overhaul in five years. That halt reduced crude oil processing and cut bitumen production, with total bitumen sales volumes falling 35% to 45.4 kilotonnes from 69.8 kilotonnes a year earlier. Revenue fell 43% to 31.1 billion FCFA ($55.6 million).
The second was not planned: the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran, which began in February 2026, shut down the Strait of Hormuz -- the maritime chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world's oil passes. Brent crude prices surpassed $100 a barrel in early March, peaked above $127 at the end of the month, and drove up SMB's input costs precisely when its production was already curtailed.
The combination -- less output and higher input costs -- compressed margins sharply. The operating result fell 50% to 1.98 billion FCFA ($3.5 million).
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SMB said it will use its competitive position in bitumen -- including established export routes and Côte d'Ivoire's accelerating road construction programme -- to recover the lost export volumes, particularly on the maritime export market where the shutdown fell short of budget.
Key Takeaways
SMB is the only bitumen refiner in Côte d'Ivoire and one of the few in West Africa, giving it a structural monopoly position in a product that is essential for road construction across the region. Côte d'Ivoire's infrastructure programme -- which includes the Abidjan metro, new toll roads, and urban road upgrades -- creates a long-term domestic demand base that few other bitumen suppliers can access. The quinquennial maintenance shutdown is a recurring event, not a business failure: refiners of SMB's type must overhaul their equipment every five years, and the timing of that shutdown in Q1 2026 was known in advance. What was not known was that it would coincide with the largest oil price spike in years. Brent crude reaching $127 per barrel in March 2026 -- driven by the US-Israel-Iran war and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz -- hit SMB's input cost at exactly the moment its production was at its lowest, maximising the margin impact. With the maintenance shutdown now complete, production should return to full capacity in Q2, and if the oil price stabilises or falls from its current elevated level above $110 per barrel, the margin compression should partially reverse. SMB's export market recovery will depend on how quickly it can recapture the volume shortfall in its maritime bitumen sales -- a market where competition from other regional suppliers may have partially filled the gap during the outage.
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