A Multimillion-dollar cooking gas plant has been commissioned in Kenya. The project promises to bring competition in the sector and bring down consumer prices of the commodity.
President William Ruto, Friday, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony of the Taifa Gas Plant at the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Mombasa.
The US $126 million gas plant, being built by Tanzanian businessman Rostam Aziz, will sit on a 30-acre parcel of land and will have a capacity of 30,000 metric tonnes.
The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) confirmed issuing the licence for the facility to be built. The commissioning happened just three days after Tanzanian billionaire Rostam Aziz was offered the licence by the Kenyan authorities.
The facility will be one of Kenya’s largest private sector investments in the recent past and among the first multi-nationals that have been allowed to set up base at the 3,000-acre in the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
It will compete with Africa Gas and Oil Ltd (Agol), owned by Mombasa tycoon Mohamed Jaffer and is set to trigger price wars for handling and evacuating cooking gas from the ships to the mainland, allowing dealers to transfer the cost reliefs to consumers. gol, which is nearby, is a 25,000-tonne facility.
Taifa Gas is the largest LPG supply company in Tanzania and has been feeding the Kenyan retail market via road.