Consumption of key petroleum products in Kenya ended two years of consecutive falls, to post a marginal rise in 2024 on the back of reduced prices, official data shows, giving a lift to an economy dogged by eroded purchasing power.
Data by the Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) indicates uptake of diesel and super petrol grew by about a percentage point, the first rise since 2021.
Uptake of diesel— largely tapped for powering commercial vehicles as well as farm and industrial machinery — increased 1.39 percent to 2.19 million metric tonnes in 2024 from 2.16 million in the prior year, a marginal rise.
Demand for super petrol, chiefly bought by personal car owners, also recovered to grow a measly 1.02 percent in sales to 1.47 million tonnes from 1.46 million tonnes in 2023.
Consumption of fuel slid in 2022 and 2023, the provisional data collated by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics suggest, coinciding with a double-digit jump in cost of the essential commodities.
The weak demand followed elevated costs blamed on bottlenecks in global supply chains after Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine cut off a key trade route, and turmoil in forex markets which resulted in a shortage of dollar supply and a sharp slide in the value of the shilling.
Consequently, average prices of diesel climbed from Sh107.64 per litre in 2021 to Sh138.78 in 2022 and Sh179.54 in 2023, before sliding 1.09 percent to Sh177.58 last year.
Super petrol, on the other hand, sold for Sh193.83 per litre on average in 2023 from Sh156.54 in 2022 and Sh124.96 in 2021 before falling 1.40 percent to Sh191.13 last year.
The high prices prompted some motorists to fit their cars with a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) system, effectively converting vehicle engines to be powered by gas as opposed to petrol in a bid to cut fuel expenses and carbon emissions. The gradual shift has given birth to fledgling petrol-to-LPG conversion services at a one-off cost as low as Sh50,000.
The use of fuel has also been impacted, at a small scale, by the gradual transition to electric mobility (e-mobility) in major cities, a shift that is now being incentivised by the government.
“Transitioning to electric mobility (e-mobility) remains a priority intervention of the Government’s inclusive green growth and climate action plan aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution while at the same time meeting the mobility needs of consumers,” the Treasury wrote in the 2025 Budget Policy Statement earlier this month.
“In addition to lowering carbon emissions, these [electric] vehicles and motorcycles are economically friendly. Additionally, electric vehicles and motorcycles are an important breakthrough toward bettering air quality and easing traffic in busy cities because of their quiet operation and lower running costs as compared to fuel diesel buses.”
Road transport accounts for more than half of total fuel consumed because of Kenya’s low manufacturing base and low levels of mechanised agriculture, the Petroleum Institute of East Africasaid in a previous note.
The sector has been hit by reduced purchases of new vehicles in recent years on prohibitive prices as a result of increased taxation, high cost of loans, and weakening shilling.
Data from the Kenya Motor Vehicle Industry Association shows purchases of new vehicles declined for the three consecutive years through 2024.
This is after new vehicle dealers and assemblers reported a 2.74 percent fall in domestic sales to 11,059 units, the lowest demand since 2010.
