Kenya is planning to transport its crude oil to Mombasa by road and railway as it make moves to join the export markets before the commencement of the general election scheduled for August 2017.

The Energy ministry has granted Rift Valley Railways (RVR) the contract to transfer the oil from as February 2017 through a distance of over 800km, from Eldoret to the Kipevu-based Kenya Petroleum Refineries (KPR).

“We are quite ambitious but we know we will be able to pull this off in the next 12-16-month window. And as we speak, work has been done to improve the road network from Lokichar to Lodwar and from Lodwar to Kapenguria to increase the shoulder size to allow trucks which carry crude oil to convey it to Kitale and subsequently to Eldoret,” Nzioka Waita head of Presidential Delivery Unit.

The renovation of the road from Lokichar to Kitale has been the government’s top priority as it plans to enable the speedy transport of crude to an export terminal in Mombasa.

Officials in the country are also eager to bypass the long procedure of building a joint crude oil refinery under debate with Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda which were supposed to be constructed in a public-private partnership model.

“We are now trying to refurbish Kipevu plant– which has only been bringing petroleum in – to take petroleum out. At the Kipevu plant, they’ll do what they call first line refinery and then take that into the export market,” Nzioka told the East African news.

Anita Fatunji