Macharia Mwangi
3 December 2007
Nairobi — The ministry of Energy is commissioning a study whose aim is to determine local petroleum products consumption up to the year 2030.
Energy minister Kiraitu Murungi said that they want to determine the size and implementation schedule from Mombasa to Nairobi to ensure steady supply of the products to locals.
Speaking during the official commissioning of the Morendat Kenya Pipeline Company Training Centre in Naivasha, Mr Murungi also said that the government was doing a lot to revitalise the energy sector.
To address shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the country, he said, the government was contracting LPG import handling and storage facilities in Mombasa as well as storage and distribution facilities in Nairobi. Mr Murungi said that the government had made major strides in the electricity sub-sector citing the turn around in fortunes of the Kenya Power and Lighting Company. "In 2003, KPLC was facing serious financial problems with negative balance sheet and its continuation as an ongoing concern was seriously threatened," he said.
The minister noted that the rate of connectivity to customers by then was at its lowest level adding that the situation had improved greatly. On the energy recovery sector, the minister said, the government secured $220 million (about Sh14 billion) from a consortium of development partners led by the World Bank whose main objective was to resuscitate the power sub-sector.
Mr Murungi said that a total of Sh12.3 billion had been committed in the last five years on electricity provision to rural areas from internal sources to implement 1,910 rural electrification schemes countrywide.
"This is in comparison to Sh6.1 million allocated between 1973 when the programme first started in the country," he said at the weekend.
The minister said that out of the 1,910 schemes, 91 involved the installation of solar power in secondary schools located in the arid and semi-arid areas and to the mini grid with isolated diesel generation.
His ministry, he said, was holding talks with the World Bank and other development partners on the possible connection of one million households under the Scale-Up Access Project at an estimated cost of $1.630 million.
Vice President Moody Awori said that the opening of the training centre demonstrated Kenya Pipeline Company's effort to broaden its revenue base beyond its core functions.
KPC managing director, Mr George Okungu, also attended the ceremony.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
