An oil tanker ferrying 75 million litres of super petrol into the country has been stuck at the coast for almost a month since arriving in the country on March 19, 2020.
The cargo ship, MT Ocean Tiara was ordered back after officers from the Kenya Pipeline Company on April 1, 2020, established that the fuel aboard the tanker was substandard.
A report by Daily Nation on Tuesday, April 14 indicated that the shipment, cargo numbers K07/2020 was imported by Asharami Synergy Limited, a subsidiary of a Nigerian oil conglomerate with interests in several countries within Africa.
Paperwork fronted by the vessel at the Kipevu oil terminus in Mombasa indicated that the Final Boiling Point (FBP) of the fuel was 199.1 degrees Celcius which is well within the required 200 degrees Celcius required by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS).
“Again, when we sampled the cargo, we found that it had an FBP of 204 degrees Celsius and thus could not be allowed into the country,” a senior official at KPC who sought anonymity stated as is quoted by the publication.
If KPC would not have tested the fuel, then a huge volume of low-quality petrol would have entered the country and Kenya would have paid a lot for it since it was priced at February crude prices which were higher compared to the current rates.
The publication reported that the tanker's owners had employed their own to witness the testing, normally conducted at the KPC laboratory.
“We then asked the vessel to vacate the Kipevu oil terminal berth to give way to other vessels,” the official stated. However, the ship has since docked in the deep sea off Diani coast, with parties pushing for it to be cleared.
London based lawyers HFW wrote a letter to Nairobi, which is dated April 5, 2020, demanding that another test be conducted on the fuel, or samples are presented to KEBS for final determination.
“We are not taking that cargo,” the official stated.
Reports indicate that oil prices in the country would have been on the rise if the fuel was allowed. This is the first time an oil tanker has been rejected at Kipevu for low-quality fuel.
On April 2, 2020, KPC Managing Director Macharia Irungu in a letter to umbrella company for oil marketers in Kenya, Supplycor Kenya Ltd general manager Rachel Mulungye, stated that the fuel had been rejected for falling short of the required quality parameters.
“The purpose of this letter is to advise that KPC will not handle the vessel and therefore the importer should arrange for the vessel to vacate the jetty immediately,” Irungu's letter read in part.
The publication reported that officials were being pressurised to clear the fuel.
