Kenya Transporters Association stated that Rwanda and Burundi stopped importing their fuel needs through the Kenyan port of Mombasa because of the contamination of some cargoes and have opted to route shipments through Tanzania, Bloomberg reported.
The association’s CEO, Alfayo Otuke, said that East African countries changed routes at the beginning of 2016. He added: “importers feel our fuel is contaminated. We have cases where some load transporters siphon fuel, add other products and when it gets to the destination countries, it is found to be adulterated,” informed Ecofin Agency.
Mombasa, the biggest harbor on the East African seaboard after Durban in South Africa, is facing increased competition from neighboring Tanzania where the government is expanding the port at Dar es Salaam and plans to spend $10b building a new one at Bagamoyo, 52km north. The Kenyan port expects the volume of cargo to almost double to 2m twenty-foot equivalent units by 2020.
Cases of impure fuel is not new to Kenya. Egypt Oil&Gas reported in early September that Kenya’s government had revoked licenses of companies involved in the sale of adulterated petroleum products along the Eldoret-Nakuru highway. This decision had come after state police had discovered five stations involved in the act, and had seized 78,000 liters of petrol, 29,000 liters of diesel, and 10,000 liters of kerosene.
