This archive report was first published on 16 December 2019.
Kenya's efforts to reduce kerosene consumption have borne fruit, with the country's monthly kerosene consumption hitting a 13-year low in September 2019.
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the country's kerosene consumption stood at 11,130 metric tonnes in September, the lowest level since at least December 2006.
The decline in kerosene consumption is attributed to oil marketers who have scaled down their sales of the product over the years, as well as the introduction of an adulteration levy by the Energy and Petroleum Authority in September 2018.
Former Petroleum Institute of East Africa Chairman Powell Maimba attributed the trend to the reduced supply of kerosene, saying that many oil stations in Nairobi no longer sell the product.
"Over the past three to four years, oil marketers have slowly discontinued the distribution of kerosene... it is not the demand but the supply that has gone down," Maimba told the Business Daily.
The introduction of the adulteration levy, which was introduced to deter the adulteration of diesel with kerosene, has also led to a decline in the consumption of paraffin, which was mainly used by unscrupulous traders to blend diesel.
