The Kigali-Dar route is nearly 1,460 kilometres, compared to the relatively shorter Kigali-Eldoret route of about 860 kilometres.

 

"A fuel truck to Dar will spend a week on average while it spends more time when it goes to Eldoret," said Jeanette Kayitesi, Finance Manager at ENGEN Petrol Station.

 

Robert Opirah, the Director General for Trade and Investment, at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, agrees.

 

Over 90 per cent of Rwanda's fuel comes in through the longer route, he said.

 

"In Dar, there are many private depots and traders go to whichever they want and trucks are loaded immediately.

 

In Kenya [Eldoret], there is heavy traffic jam due to the export market as well as domestic consumption. The huge metropolitan cities in western Kenya usually get served first," he explained.

 

"Then there is traffic to Uganda which gets almost all its fuel imports from Kenya. Uganda has more demand than Rwanda and DR Congo. Then there will be trucks from South Sudan yet Eldoret has one publicly managed depot, unlike in Dar where there are several private depots".

 

The Dar route is also preferred because it entails crossing only one international border, hence less paperwork, Opirah said.

 

"For petroleum products to move the long distance in a huge pipeline from Mombasa to the two terminal points in Kisumu and Eldoret, pipes must be full to generate enough pressure. When, for example, most fuel is consumed by the big demand in Nairobi, the remainder is not enough to be pushed all the way to Eldoret," Claudien Habimana, Managing Director of Societe Petroliere Ltd (SP), told The New Times.

 

"This leads to delay sas more fuel has to be pumped first. In addition, petroleum batches are scheduled in a way that today they could pump diesel, tomorrow a different product and so on and so forth. Given this kind of schedule, those who want it have to wait till it reaches western Kenya."

 

"And even then, when the product is insufficient it can't be pumped. It probably might not reach Eldoret but reach Nakuru. One would, therefore, be required to load from Nakuru but this also calls for another approval from customs officials. This results into incurring of extra costs," Habimana said.

 

Market share

 

Before trucks are loaded at Eldoret, market share considerations put Rwandan bound cargo at a disadvantage.

 

Habimana explained: "If, for example, my market share is 2 per cent, when loading the trucks, they know that the likes of Total, Shell, Viva, and others are waiting to load and then an estimation is done on how much fuel is available. If there are 200 trucks lining up, they consider the companies' market share.

 

"If Total has a bigger market share, it means they have more fuel coming from Mombasa. If SP's market share is small, they only load a maximum of two trucks per day yet there are more than 20 trucks waiting," Habimana said.

 

" But in Dar es Salaam the situation is different. When a ship arrives in Dar, it immediately offloads into the many depots there and I can load as many trucks as I want. For example, there are times when SP loads 100 trucks per day".

 

"SP refuels all diesel-powered electric generators in Rwanda and these consume 50 trucks in a week.

 

"If we went to western Kenya, things wouldn't work since even pump stations would experience shortages and, in addition, there would be power shortage here," he explained.

 

While 60 trucks can be loaded in Dar in a single day, if one opted for the shorter Kenya route, the maximum trucks they could load a day "would not go beyond three."

Source : ALL AFRICA