Major fuel shortage hits towns

• Situation may derail plans of travellers during festive season, say petroleum dealers

A shortage of fuel has hit parts of the country just days before the start of the busy Christmas and New Year holidays.

Shortages were reported in Nairobi, central Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western provinces.

Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) said they were pumping enough petrol from Mombasa to Nairobi and other hinterland areas but dealers had not raised their orders.

But dealers claimed that demand for petroleum products had increased after prices were lowered from an average Sh93 per litre to the current Sh78.

Increase in prices

Motorists feared that the dealers were laying ground for an increase in the prices of petroleum products.

In Kisumu, KPC depot manager Joshua Nyatete said they had adequate supplies and blamed dealers for not adjusting their volumes to meet the rise in demand.

“We cleared all the orders by local petroleum products dealers on Jamhuri Day (Friday) and still had some stock left. The shortage could be as a result of the marketers’ declared product volume being exceeded by demand,” said Mr Nyatete.

The manager said most oil marketers were yet to revise the declared product volume in line with customs regulations, which affected the allowable quantity of allocation to them.

This, he said, was constricting their ability to meet increasing demand. 

A survey by the Nation on Tuesday, however, showed that dealers had not increased their pump prices.

At Shell petrol station in Kisumu Town, petrol was retailing at Sh79.9 a litre, while diesel was selling at Sh72.9. At Total outlets, petrol was going for Sh79.9 a litre and diesel at Sh74.9, while at National Oil, petrol was retailing at Sh79.8 and diesel at Sh72.9.

In Kakamega Town, some petrol stations reported a shortage of diesel. An official of Somken petrol station Mohammed Abdi Khadir said he received his supply of fuel last Friday.

He got 4,000 litres of diesel and 2,000 litres of petrol, which had run out by Tuesday.

“We have placed a fresh order for fuel which we expect by the end of the day or tomorrow,” said Mr Khadir.

He said he had cut pump prices at the station in line with other dealers. Diesel was selling at Sh75 per litre, down from Sh77, while the price of super petrol had gone down by Sh1 from Sh88 to Sh87.

The price of kerosene had been lowered by 50 cents to Sh71 at the petrol station.

In Nairobi, a letter obtained by Nation says the Mombasa-Nairobi pipeline commissioned last month had not attained the anticipated pumping capacity of 880 cubic metres per hour.

Increased demand

KPC attributed increased demand for super petrol to the recent price reduction but retail outlet owners said the shortage, which started last weekend, persisted as getting enough fuel stocks was hard.

KPC’s operations manager Peter Mecha said super petrol’s recent retail price drop to an average of Sh75 had led to a surge in demand in Nairobi and other towns which oil marketing firms had not anticipated.

Energy ministry sources said oil companies moved about 2.5 million litres from KPC’s Nairobi depot at the weekend after the super petrol stock at the storage facility ran out last Wednesday.

Kenya Independent Petroleum Dealers Association chairman Keith Ngaruchi said dealers had recorded losses because of erratic supplies of super petrol from most oil companies.

“The shortage of super (petrol) is not good because there will be far-reaching ramifications as plans of people who intend to travel for holidays could be disrupted if the trend continues,” he said.

Reported by Kennedy Senelwa, Dan Obiero and Benson Amadala