Nearly one million tonnes of goods moved through the port of Cotonou to Burkina Faso in 2025, as the diplomatic standoff between Benin and Niger reshaped long-established trade routes across West Africa. The figure, dominated by petroleum products, marks a significant reorientation of transit traffic toward the Burkinabè market.
The Beninese platform has not been idled by the rupture in relations with Niamey. Instead, it has progressively redirected flows toward other landlocked markets, with Burkina Faso emerging as the most visible beneficiary. In the first half of 2026, the port handled 7.79 million tonnes of cargo, a 16.6% increase compared with the same period a year earlier, confirming an ongoing realignment of regional trade corridors.
How the Niger crisis redrew the transit map
For years, Niger was Cotonou’s primary transit outlet. Geographic proximity and the road corridor linking the port to Niamey made the Beninese facility a natural gateway for the Nigerien economy.
The political crisis that erupted in Niger in July 2023, followed by a steady deterioration in relations between Niamey and Cotonou, disrupted that arrangement. The closure of the land border between the two countries and tensions surrounding the transport of Nigerien oil weakened the historic corridor.
Yet the port was not condemned to absorb the shock passively. Operators gradually sought new relays in the hinterland, while the needs of landlocked economies continued to sustain demand for transit services.
It is against this backdrop that Burkina Faso scaled up its use of the corridor.
Burkina Faso becomes the new transit engine
Data presented by the commercial directorate of the Port autonome de Cotonou during a professional gathering in 2026 illustrate the shift. In 2025, transit accounted for 39.2% of port traffic. Burkina Faso captured 16% of that total, representing close to one million tonnes of goods shipped to the country, largely in the form of hydrocarbons.
The number is significant. It reflects less the sudden emergence of a new corridor than the acceleration of an existing trade route. Burkina Faso has long had several access routes to the sea — Abidjan, Lomé, Tema and Cotonou — and arbitrates between them based on cost, fluidity, and the political and security situation.
The deterioration of the Benin-Niger axis thus created a window of opportunity for Burkinabè traffic.
The phenomenon is particularly visible in the fuel market. Landlocked and facing substantial energy needs, Burkina Faso depends on Gulf of Guinea ports for part of its petroleum product supplies. Cotonou can serve as an entry platform before cargo is moved onward to Ouagadougou and other regions of the country.
Hydrocarbons at the heart of the shift
The weight of hydrocarbons in flows destined for Burkina Faso is not incidental. These goods generate large volumes and require a regular logistics chain linking the port, storage facilities and the regional road network.
This specialisation partly explains why Burkina Faso has become such a visible outlet in the port’s transit statistics.
It also helps clarify why the port is now seeking to consolidate its role as a regional hub. Traffic growth no longer rests solely on serving the Beninese market, but on Cotonou’s capacity to connect coastal economies with landlocked markets.
2026 Data confirm Cotonou’s resilience
Early results for 2026 show that this diversification strategy is bearing fruit, even if available statistics do not yet allow for a precise measurement of Burkinabè tonnage over the full year.
In the first half of 2026, the port processed 7.79 million tonnes of goods, compared with 6.68 million over the same period in 2025 — a rise of 16.6%.
This increase follows an already exceptional 2025. Annual port traffic that year rose from 9.6 million to 14.7 million tonnes, a growth rate of 52%.
The composition of 2026 growth deserves attention. Imports were nearly flat, reaching 4.12 million tonnes against 4.10 million a year earlier, a rise limited to 0.6%. Exports, by contrast, jumped 33.3%, from 2.16 to 2.87 million tonnes.
Transshipment recorded a spectacular increase: 516,558 tonnes in the first half of 2026, against 204,928 tonnes a year earlier — a surge of 152.1%.
These figures do not directly measure road traffic to Burkina Faso. They nevertheless show that Cotonou is strengthening its role as a regional redistribution platform at a time when old trade routes are being thoroughly reconfigured.
A corridor set to matter even more
For Burkina Faso, the stakes are strategic. The multiplication of political and security tensions in the region has made corridor diversification indispensable. No single port can be considered a unique and definitive solution for a landlocked country.
In this competitive landscape, Cotonou nonetheless holds an asset: geographic proximity to Burkina Faso and the existence of a road corridor historically used by Burkinabè operators. The Beninese port also has modernised infrastructure and is seeking to reduce processing times and improve the fluidity of flows. The PAC has notably digitised the management of truck movements to facilitate clearance and transit operations.
The battle is therefore now fought as much on infrastructure as on political stability and corridor security.
Niger has not definitively left the game
This new transit geography does not mean the Nigerien market is set to disappear durably from the port of Cotonou’s horizon.
Proof comes from oil flows. In 2026, Nigerien crude continues to use Beninese infrastructure to reach international markets. A cargo of one million barrels was notably shipped from the Sèmè-Kpodji terminal in August 2026.
The commercial relationship between the two countries thus remains paradoxical: the diplomatic dispute disrupts part of overland trade, but the two economies remain linked by strategic infrastructure.
For Cotonou, the challenge is therefore to avoid excessive dependence on a single hinterland market. Burkina Faso appears as one of the most promising responses to this new reality.
A realignment built to last?
With nearly one million tonnes of goods in transit to Burkina Faso in 2025, the country has established itself among the main outlets of the Beninese port. Available 2026 figures do not yet allow a claim that this volume was maintained or exceeded, given the lack of detailed half-year data by destination.
They nonetheless deliver an essential lesson: despite the shock to the Nigerien corridor, Cotonou continues to advance. With 7.79 million tonnes in the first half of 2026, against 6.68 million a year earlier, the port confirms its capacity to absorb and redistribute new flows.
Burkina Faso thus finds itself at the heart of a broader transformation. For Cotonou, the task is no longer merely to offset the loss of part of Nigerien traffic, but to build a port model less dependent on a single corridor.
The question now is whether this redistribution of cards will prove durable. If Burkinabè traffic continues to grow, the Cotonou-Ouagadougou corridor could assert itself as one of the new structuring axes of regional trade. And the Beninese port, long associated with the Nigerien market, may well be changing its face.