UK-based firm eyes Kenya oil supply

Posted on : Tuesday, 13th January 2015

 Anglo Energy Refining Corporation, a UK-based petroleum firm, has set up base in Kenya with an eye on bulk importation of oil and possibly setting up a refinery.The UK firm’s debut makes Nairobi its African headquarters. The oil company in December received a licence to operate and import oil under the Open Tender System (OTS), the centralised oil distribution system, from the Energy ministry, and says it is ready to bid for tenders.“Our focus right now is on the OTS. We want to start bidding in the next few weeks,” Anglo Energy Kenya director Abdishakur Jama told the Business Daily.All crude and refined oil in Kenya is imported through the OTS and the winning company gets the sole right to buy and resell the commodity to other marketers.Anglo Energy will be muscling into the OTS business currently dominated by Gulf, Vivo Energy, Total and Gapco. The company also plans to invest in a refinery and says it is already conducting feasibility studies and talking to the Energy ministry on the viability of the project.The 30-year-old company has refineries in Indonesia and Paraguay.The only refinery at the moment is Kenya Petroleum Refinery Ltd’s facility in Mombasa that is now dormant after 54 years of service.But the government too is doing a feasibility study on building of a new refinery in Lamu County as part of the Lamu Port South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport corridor project.Anglo Energy is also involved in upstream business through its oil exploration and production in South East Asia, South America and Russia. The company’s fields have a combined daily output of 13,000 barrels of oil.Regional exploration is another area that Anglo Energy is interested in.