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Kenya PM Raila Odinga wants to Triple Natural Gas, Gasoline Reserves

By Amarendra Bhushan for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:December 2, 2008 Become a writer!

Kenya, east Africa’s biggest economy, will more than triple its natural gas and gasoline reserves over the next three months, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said.

Reserves will be boosted to 90 days, from 20 days, Odinga told reporters today at a briefing in the capital, Nairobi.

The government will also by the end of December name the contractor to build a second planned gas and gasoline pipeline from Nairobi to the western town of Eldoret, Patrick Nyoike, permanent secretary in the Energy Ministry, told reporters at the same briefing. The project, which is expected to take 18 to 24 months to complete, will cost at least 14 billion shillings ($175.3 million), he said.

“There will be no trucks coming to Nairobi to pick up products,” Nyoike said. “It is more cost effective to distribute products by pipelines.” Eldoret is about 310 kilometers (193 miles) northwest of Nairobi.

Kenya announced plans for the construction of the pipeline in May and said it was being built to ease fuel shortages in western Kenya and neighboring countries including Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. The nation’s existing pipeline was built in 1978. bloomberg says