More than 4,300 petroleum and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) retail outlets are set for special quality audits on rising concerns about disregard for safety by some operators.
The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) said the audit would involve technical safety checks and create an inventory of all petroleum and LPG retail outlets.
“The purpose of the assignment is to ensure that Epra collects all the requisite data, including compliance status for petroleum and autogas retail stations and consumer sites, to enforce conformity to set standards and codes and thereby ensure the protection of the environment and safety to the general public,” said the regulator in a tender call for specialists to conduct the audit.
“The scope of the assignment will be to undertake scheduled physical visits to over 4,300 petroleum retail stations and consumer sites in Kenya and undertaking technical assessment, recording the audit findings, and preparing detailed audit reports for Epra’s attention.”
There has been a rapid growth in the number of small and independent petroleum and LPG outlets in Kenya since the liberalisation of the sub-sector in 1994, which ended the dominance of multinational oil companies.
Many small indigenous firms are now active in the import, wholesale, and retail segments of the petroleum and LPG supply chain.
Even though the increased number of indigenous businesses in the petroleum retail supply chain has yielded economic benefits, it has presented public and environmental safety challenges amid the construction and operation of fuel retail stations without the requisite regulatory approvals.
“There has also been an increase in the use of LPG for internal combustion engines (autogas). This requires that Epra can identify their locations and pass the same information to potential users,” said the regulator.
“Currently, there are about 4,300 petroleum retail stations distributed in all 47 counties. A majority of these do not have the requisite construction permits or operational licences as required by law. Most are, therefore, not known to Epra by location, ownership, or compliance status.”
A recent compliance check by the Epra between July and December 2023 on 18 LPG storage and filling stations revealed that only 65.3 percent passed the safety threshold.
“During the period under review, the authority undertook 840 inspections on wholesale and retail sites, which recorded a compliance level of 51.96 percent, 54 bulk LPG road tankers with a compliance level of 82.07 percent, and 18 LPH storage and filling plants with a compliance level of 65.3 percent,” said the Epra.
Apart from the checks on retail outlets, the State also targets to tighten safety rules in the LPG segment through automated tracking of cooking gas cylinders starting in June this year.
This will either be done through an Internet of Things (IoT) or Radiofrequency identity (RFID) chips, offering a full view of cooking gas from the import point, refilling stations, and end-consumers.
It will be an upgrade from the current state where the government is only relying on receipts issued by fuel stations upon refilling or purchase of cooking gas.
Automated tracking will give Epra and other State agencies an upper hand in the fight against illegal refilling and a host of other un-authorised activities in the sector.
“We are looking at tracking the cooking gas cylinders which will help us monitor it from the source to destination. This will start in June, we have a deadline on the need to track every kilo of imported LPG to know where it ends up,” Edward Kinyua, the Petroleum and Gas Director at Epra said.
RFID chips use radio frequency identification tags and readers to automatically monitor the names and locations of a device while IoT entails embedding products with sensors, and software to allow the exchange of data with other devices and systems over the internet.
The State believes that deploying the automated tracking will make it easy to identify illegal refilling stations and significantly curb the black market in the estates and informal places.
