How the deception game was hatched

• In seeking the perpetrators of the scam, the dragnet will have to be cast wide

Triton has also been an active player in the battle by the industry for the contract to supply oil to the emergency power producers, Agrekko, that is floated yearly by the Kenya Energy Generating Company (KenGen).

It has won the contract several times. Winning the contract was strategic because Mr Devani would then get the Ministry of Energy to order KPC to give his shipments preferential treatment in ullage space.

According to the evidence in the public domain, among the most exposed international creditor is Glencore International of the UK, one of the largest oil traders in the region. The company has had a long relationship with Triton.

There was a time when the big oil companies believed that Triton was but a trading arm of Glencore.

In early 2006, a major controversy erupted when oil majors accused Triton and Glencore of hoarding ullage space in KPC’s storage tanks at the expense of others- breaching the rule that says that ullage must be allocated according to market share.

Industry players alleged that Triton was employing political muscle to give it preferential treatment in the allocation of storage space.

During that period, many oil marketers were forced to buy from Triton as there was no space to store their own consignments.

For a long time, Glencore used to manage the contract to lift Nigerian crude on Kenya’s behalf. Under the arrangement, Glencore would sell crude provided to Kenya by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, sell it elsewhere and remit the money to the National Oil Corporation of Kenya.

The contract was the subject of an investigation by Kroll Associates in 2003. It lost the contract when the Narc Government took over in 2003.