The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has provided the shipping schedule and location of the contested Sh11 billion fuel import amid fears that part of the emergency cargo had been consumed over the Easter holidays.
KPA reckons the 60,000 metric tonnes of fuel was lodged on March 27 on its manifest, showing arrival of MT Paloma within the port limits at 02.30am.
KPA Harbour Master Patrick Onyango tabled documents before the Senate Committee on Energy showing the pilot boarded the vessel at around 7:30pm and docked alongside berth No. 1 at the Kipevu Oil Terminal II at 08:42pm.
Mr Onyango told the committee that the vessel discharged the cargo at Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) tanks, with KPA pocketing port charges of Sh37,707,832 ($290,000.43).
‘KPA maintains a 14-day list of expected vessels in the port which is updated daily and published in the KPA’s website,’ said Mr Onyango.
The State ordered the exit of the contested petrol from the country and barred oil marketers from selling it.
Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi reckoned that the emergency importation of fuel was in breach of supply contracts Kenya inked with Saudi Aramco Trading Fujairah, Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC GlobalTrading Ltd, and Emirates National Oil Company Singapore Ltd.
But oil executives have poked holes into the State’s directive, saying that it is unrealistic and a populist move that could see banks become jittery over funding importation of fuel.
Moses Tauso, the KPC acting general manager in charge of operations and engineering. had earlier told the Senate committee that despite raising alarm, the fuel still managed to find its way into the market.
‘This was a contingency procurement and even the importer gave a proposal on the quality with a disclaimer that there was an issue with standards and it was known even at the procurement stage,’ said Mr Tauso.
One Petroleum and Oryx Energies were awarded a deal to import an emergency cargo of petrol, each of 60,000 metric tonnes towards the end of March, to avert an outage of the commodity from April 2.
KPC said that it was impossible to retrieve the fuel that One Petroleum delivered, contrary to Mr Wandayi’s assertions that the fuel was recalled.
‘We cannot separate it, it is within our system but the oil is not clogging up our system,’ Mr Tauso told the committee during the session held in Mombasa.
Mr Wandayi added that One Petroleum’s cargo could have led to a rise of Sh14 per litre of fuel in the new prices that came into force from April 15.
But fuel prices jumped with a wider margin. Diesel jumped by Sh30 a litre despite a subsidy and halving of value-added tax 8.0 percent for three months to cushion consumers from a surge in crude prices.
Three top State officials in the energy docket were arrested and later resigned over the deal.
Mohamed Liban, the Principal Secretary for Petroleum, Joe Sang, the managing director of KPC, and Daniel Kiptoo, the director-general of the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra), resigned two days after their arrest.
KPA also told the committee that it had listed 19 vessels which had brought in fuel from the end of February to mid- April.
The documents that KPA tabled before the committee show that a vessel code-named MT Valery Roma docked on April 14 and discharged 37,000 metric tonnes of fuel under the government-to-government (G-to-G) arrangement.
Another seven vessels carrying different grades of fuel are expected to dock at the port of Mombasa in the next 14 days.
Mr Wandayi, his Trade counterpart, Lee Kinyanjui, and officials of One Petroleum and Oryx are expected to appear before the Senate committee on April 23.