Kerosene Sh18 jump to hit poor homes hardest

Kerosene will record the biggest jump in prices to be announced Friday, following the fresh import of the product that has not been on order since April.

A litre of kerosene will be sold Sh18.03 more per litre starting tomorrow to retail at Sh83.48 in Nairobi from the Sh65.45 per litre in July.

The July import when crude prices have recovered to an average of $43 per barrel, will result in a 28 percent increase in prices of kerosene, largely used by poor households to cook and in the manufacturing of paint.

The Sh18.03 rise is nearly six times the set Sh3.32 increase in super petrol to Sh103.80 per litre in Nairobi and additional Sh2.57 on diesel prices.

The jump will hit poor households hard with a higher number having slid to the use of kerosene and reduced reliance on cooking gas, according to data from the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA).

Increased use of kerosene, whose prices touched a three-year low of Sh62 per litre, comes as dealers went for three months without importing paraffin, sparking a shortage.

The poor also use kerosene for lighting. Cooking gas consumption data covering the period when Kenya began implementing containment measures to curb Covid-19 shows that the volumes dropped while that of kerosene rose.

The measures came with hard economic times on households, pushing many to cheaper energy sources. The six months’ data from January 2020 show that consumers bought 23,327 tonnes of cooking gas in June compared to May’s figure of 30,860 tonnes of the commodity. The 24 percent drop coincides with a double rise in kerosene use in June to 29.4 million litres from the 15.4 million litres in May.

“In the July /August cycle, there was no kerosene discharged at the Port of Mombasa. Accordingly, the prevailing kerosene price has been maintained but adjusted for the under recovery of value-added tax by oil marketing companies that occurred in the previous pricing cycle,” EPRA wrote in its July pump prices report.

The new price jump is more than six times compared to the Sh2.98 per litre added in the pricing cycle ending today.