Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have agreed to offload all fuel stocks held for the export market locally in a new attempt to end the ongoing fuel shortage crisis in the country.
This follows a meeting between the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining, the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) and OMC CEOs held earlier on Wednesday.
At the same time, the marketers have agreed to earmark imports from two vessels for the local market to meet the local demand including one carrying super petrol and another carrying diesel.
Moreover, the oil marketing companies have agreed to set aside 20 million litres of fuel to non-franchised petroleum dealers who largely serve interior parts of the country.
“We have agreed that in order to correct the fuel supply hitches that have affected the country for the past few weeks, 20 million litres be made available to non-franchised petroleum retailers who now account for 68 per cent of the country’s retail network,” noted Petroleum Outlets Association of Kenya (POAK) Chairman Martin Chomba.
“OMCs have agreed to sell fuel to the independents at a reasonable price. We are confident that the above measures are sure to set the fuel supply system to recovery and eventually restore normalcy.”
The Wednesday meeting is on the back of the continued overstocking of transit supplies by OMCs at the expense of the local market.
In a letter to CEOs, Petroleum Principal Secretary Andrew Kamau warned that OMCs with excess transit supplies risk being blacklisted from the open tender system (OTS) used in the procurement of fuel imports by marketers.