Kenya: Fuel Crisis Bites As Companies Seek Black Gold

Even with reports that Kenya could have struck oil in Lodwar, the fuel situation in the country has been declared a crisis at the highest levels of Government. And the situation doesn’t look promising.

Industry experts now say that there is little the country can do besides planning for the future.
Kenya imports crude oil for national consumption. But it imports just enough to last a month.

“We buy oil in one-month instalments and that means if something big enough to interrupt supply happened, we would be left in a total crisis,” said an industry expert who has been in the business for 25 years. “Worse off would be if the world oil prices keep rising. It would probably be a shut down because of our national inability to cushion against rising prices. We do not have oil reserves.”

According to the expert, one of the solutions the Government should seek is oil exploration. But they want it to play a more active role and not just leave the job to foreign companies.

Industry experts say Kenya has no capacity to order commercial quantities of oil and it has no strategic oil reserves. Other countries like the US and Norway have physical facilities where reserves are stored in case of an energy emergency.

AllAfrica