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Lake Gas takes 2pc market share of cooking gas imports
Security Personnel during the commissioning of cargo discharge from MT Barumk Gas Vessel at the Lake Gas Limited, a Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Terminal in Vipingo, Kilifi County on June 4, 2025.
Tanzanian-owned Lake Gas has snapped up two percent of the local market for handling imported cooking gas, taking a piece of a business that has been dominated for decades by African Gas and Oil (AGOL).
Industry data from the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) revealed the market share of the Tanzanian oil marketer, adding that AGOL and the Shimanzi Oil Terminal (SOT) dominate with a combined share of 94.56 per cent. AGOL’s facility has a capacity of 25,000 tonnes, while SOT connects to five storage facilities with a combined capacity of 2,335 tonnes.
Lake Gas started handling imported liquified petroleum gas (LPG) this year through its recently completed terminal at Vipingo, Kilifi County.
The facility has a capacity of 10,000 tonnes. The oil marketer is part of the Lake Group, which was founded by Tanzanian tycoon Ally Edha Awadh.
AGOL, which is owned by Mombasa-based business mogul Mohamed Jaffer, has for years handled more than 90 percent of the gas imported into Kenya.
“The total LPG import receiving infrastructure capacity within Mombasa and Kilifi currently stands at approximately 37,335 tonnes,” Epra says.
The Epra data shows that the rest of the LPG is imported in small portions using trucks and enters the country from Tanzania via the border towns of Namanga (2.75 percent), Loitoktok (0.57 percent) and Lunga Lunga (0.10 percent).
AGOL and SOT are the two facilities that receive LPG into bulk storage facilities within Mombasa, while Lake Gas does the same in Kilifi County.
Entry of Lake Gas and other companies is key to lowering the fees of handling cooking gas and the wholesale prices. This, in turn, is anticipated to trigger a fall in retail prices of LPG, making it affordable to low-income homes.
“You can already see that just because of increased terminals, competition has started to lower gate prices of LPG,” Daniel Kiptoo, the Director General of Epra, said.
Wholesale prices of LPG in Mombasa dropped to an average of Sh83 per kilogramme last month from Sh100 for the same quantity in January this year, largely due to the entry of Lake Gas and also a fall in global prices of cooking gas.
AGOL’s dominance in the LPG market looks set to be rattled further as Lake Gas plans to expand and more companies line up facilities to handle cooking gas imports.
Lake Gas is set to build a second terminal next to the current one. The new facility will have a capacity of 15,000 tonnes, bringing it to par with AGOL in terms of capacity.
The new terminal is key to the efforts of Lake Gas to handle a bigger chunk of cooking gas and further eat into a market that has for decades been under the tight grip of AGOL.
Taifa Gas, which is owned by Tanzanian tycoon Rostam Aziz, was cleared to build a terminal with a capacity of 25,000 in Dongo Kundu, while Kenya Pipeline Company entered into a deal with Nigeria Asharami Energy to set up a facility of 30,000 tonnes in Changamwe.
