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UGANDA AND KENYA TO SIGN FUEL PACT December 23, 2005
Apunyu Bonny
(SomaliNet) The Memorandum of Understanding, signed on December 20, between Uganda and Kenya is set to improve fuel supply in Uganda through western Kenya. Dealers will now be allowed to draw fuel from Nakuru for export to Uganda and other countries in the region.
Uganda and neighboring countries, which have been experiencing a shortage of petroleum products, get enough supplies, said Kenya Pipeline Company chief technical manager Absalom Kosgei.
Additionally it will ensure Kenya Pipeline utilizes the excess capacity at the Nakuru depot, which is currently underutilized at 37 per cent. The depot has excess capacity of about 35 million litres of fuel per month.
Mr. Kosgei said the measures follow the signing of an agreement between the Kenya and Uganda governments to increase supply of fuel products to Uganda. KPC has been struggling to meet the country’s fuel demand with the additional export requirement of 18,000 cubic metres from Kisumu and Eldoret.
At the moment, the agreement provides for the supply of petroleum products and stock build-up in western Kenya depots of Nakuru, Kisumu and Eldoret.
Transit petroleum products are to be transported from Mombassa, Nairobi and Nakuru after a month, which is the period needed by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to configure its information technology system. Previously, transit products could only be transported from Eldoret and Kisumu depots.
There will be parallel mainline booster pumps by February 2006 to improve the rate of flow of the Mombassa-Nairobi segment from 440,000 litres to 540,000 litres per hour, and for the Nairobi-Nakuru segment from 220,000 litres to 280,000 litres per hour.