The government has announced plans to expand the Kisumu Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC) depot to accommodate more volumes.
Energy Cabinet Secretary (CS) Opiyo Wandayi made the revelation after the operationalization of the Kisumu oil jetty, which has increased the demand for petroleum products destined to Uganda and other neighboring countries.
Speaking during an inspection tour of the facility, he said the proposed expansion will see the facility’s storage capacity doubled with the oil jetty assigned an independent unit to load vessels ferrying the commodities to Entebbe, Uganda.
“We are looking forward to expanding the infrastructure at the depot starting with the construction of new tanks to be able to accommodate more volumes,” he said.
He said the jetty, which was constructed in 2018 and operationalized in 2022, has evacuated 290 million litres of petroleum products from Kisumu to Entebbe through Lake Victoria so far.
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He added that this has removed hundreds of tracks from the road, saving the country huge sums of money spent on road maintenance and guaranteeing the safe transportation of commodities.
Further, he said the government plans to optimize operations at the jetty, with an eye on new markets in Bukoba and Mwanza in Tanzania as transportation of petroleum products through Lake Victoria gains momentum.
He added that plans were underway to expand the pipeline to Kampala (Uganda) and Kigali (Rwanda) as Kenya looks to expand its petroleum business across the East Africa region.
“We have a long-term plan to expand the pipeline from Eldoret to Kigali. We are in talks with our friends Rwanda to channel more of their volumes through Mombasa, Eldoret and Kisumu as we work on this new frontier,” he said.
He said the Ministry has adopted a multi-prong approach to transportation of petroleum products, with the Kisumu jetty set to play a critical role as the pipeline expands.
He said this was a deliberate move to boost KPC's capacity to generate more revenue on the petroleum value chain.
