Consumers warned of gas cylinder filling fraud

Oil and gas industry operators are raising a red flag over the continued escalation of malpractices in the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) business.

The players say seven out of 10 cylinders in the market are sourced from illegal fillers - a trend that is causing massive unease in the industry.

Through their lobby group, the Petroleum Institute of East Africa (PIEA), the industry players are warning that illegally filled cylinders are compromising the safety and property of consumers.

According to PIEA, illegally filled gas cylinders are mostly underweight and lack cylinder validation and gas stench—a component that enables one to identify a leak.

“The extent of the crisis is of grave concern to consumer safety given that statistics indicate that almost 80 per cent of the LPG Business Segment is illegal,” said Polycarp Igathe, chairman, PIEA.

In a statement yesterday, Mr Igathe said the magnitude of the LPG illegal business has become grossly dangerous and consumers can no longer be assured of their safety.

He said branded LPG cylinders that are stocked in majority of supermarkets and estate retail outlets have not been filled or supplied by brand owners. “Nairobi County has over 70 illegal retailers and over 10 illegal and unlicensed LPG storage and cylinder filling facilities,” said Igathe.

“The hurried introduction of the unified valve and regulator which was done in an environment where illegal refilling was already going on has been exploited as an avenue to legitimise illegal refilling and illegal cylinder rebranding.”

The penetration of LPG in Kenya, however, remains very low at about seven per cent with most consumption of the product concentrated in the urban areas.

Official data from Ministry of Energy and Petroleum shows that on the national level, wood fuel and other biomass account for about 68 per cent of the total primary energy consumption followed by petroleum fuels at 22 per cent, electricity at nine per cent and solar at less than one per cent.

Consequently, industry players are pushing the government to impose taxes on kerosene to deter many Kenyans from using the fuel and take up LPG.