Troubles of the main Kenyan refinery won’t affect Rwanda, says Governement
09/05/2013
By Iv an R. Mugisha & Maria Kaitesi
Kenya’s bid to become the region’s oil hub has been dealt a blow after its only refinery, Kenya Petroleum Refineries, announced last Friday that it could soon be unable to refine petroleum products due to financial constraints.
Last week, Kenyan media reported that the refinery was seeking to raise Ksh99.6b (about $1.2b) to expand its facilities and increase its crude handling capacity to four million tonnes of crude per year by 2018, from 1.6 million now.
The 50-year old company’s financial shortfalls are due to a dispute with oil marketers, who boycotted its products due to operational inefficiencies and, thus, hurting its operations, reports indicated.
This culminated into fears that the crisis could prompt fuel shortages across East Africa, Mombasa being the main supply route and oil refiner to its landlocked neighbours Uganda, Burundi, the DR Congo and Rwanda.
(SOURCE : THE NEW TIMES : HERE)
The Governement of Rwanda increases fuel reserves ahead Kenyan polls
28/02/2013
In order to avoid the fuel sortage that could affect the trade in Rwanda, but also the flights at the Kigali Airport, the Governement of Rwanda has decided to increase fuel reserves ahead Kenyan polls. According to the New Times, fuel reserves will last over one and ahalf months ahead of the upcoming Kenyan elections.
“The country’s fuel reserves are currently filled with about 29 million litres that can sustain the country for a month and a half. We want to assure all Rwandans that they should not be afraid of potential fuel shortage,” the minister said
With the departure of Chevron some years ago, SP Aviation a Rwandan based company is the unique fuel provider at Kigali Airport. It provides both AVGAS (mainly used for piston engine aircraft) and JET A (used by gas turbine aircraft). In 2011, the airport extanded its fuel storage and added two new state of art fuel trucks.
In 2007, the post election violence left 1,200 people dead and 600,000 more displaced in weeks of unrest. During the fighting a dozen Rwandan and Ugandan traders lost their goods worth $47.5 million and up to now they’re still awaiting compensation despite Kibaki’s order to reimburse them, according to AfriqueJet.
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