The first consignment of oil destined for Uganda has arrived at the Port of Mombasa, nearly a year since the neighbouring countries plunged into a bitter row over prices and fuel supplies of the commodity.

The consignment by Uganda National Oil Company carrying 78 million litres of petrol and 65,000 tonnes of diesel docked at the port on Wednesday at Kipevu Oil Terminal II.

This consignment will be discharged into the Kenya Pipeline Company storage and transportation system for delivery to Eldoret and Kisumu depots where it will be loaded onto trucks for transportation to Uganda.

A second ship, carrying 65,000 metric tonnes of diesel is expected to dock later on Wednesday.

For decades Kenya has been importing oil and selling it to her neighbours in East Africa until last year when Uganda sought to start importing its fuel as authorities in Kampala questioned the terms and conditions Kenya was subjecting the landlocked country in accessing the vital commodity.

Data shows that Uganda has always procured about 90 percent of its fuel supplies from Kenya-based oil marketing companies, with the remainder being secured under a similar arrangement via suppliers based in Tanzania.

Last November, however, President Yoweri Museveni called out middlemen in Kenya, claiming that they were solely responsible for increasing the prices of fuel products destined for his country by up to 58 percent.

"Kenya has for decades decided what petroleum products Uganda buys, when, from where, how much, who buys and at what price," explained Ugandan Energy Minister Ruth Nankabirwa.

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Demands that angered Uganda on oil importation via Kenya

As the row escalated, Uganda took Kenya to the East African Court in January 2024, accusing Nairobi of declining to allow it to move its imported petroleum products from Mombasa to Uganda via the Kenya pipeline.

In its suit papers, Kampala accused Kenya of failing to give the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) the necessary permits to run as an Oil Marketing Company in Kenya. The suit followed a move by Kenya's Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority's directive asking UNOC to register as an oil marketing company to ship Uganda-bound oil across the country.

EPRA also asked UNOC to among others secure work permits for its employees, register as a business in the country, and file the identification documents of its directors besides offering prove that it has sales volumes of 6.6 million liters of various products including super petrol, A1jet or Kerosene in Kenya.

What's more, EPRA asked UNOC to file evidence of running at least five pump stations and depots with a cumulative turnover of $10 million since 2020, among other demands.

On its part, UNOC, while seeking exemption noted that it is a state corporation and faulted EPRA arguing that it had no plan to operate in Kenya since its business was only transporting the product to Uganda.

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