A US$ 22m fuel depot in Rwanda launched

A US$ 22m fuel depot in Rwanda has been launched President Paul Kagame to help increase the country’s fuel storage capacity from 31 million to 74 million.

The new depot which is located in Rusororo Sector, Gasabo District, in the outskirts of Kigali was developed and financed by Societe Petroliere Ltd (SP) with extra financing from EcoBank. It will become the first fuel terminal in Rwanda that will have a 22-million litre capacity and will have the ability of storing 10 million litres of diesel, 10 million litres of essence and 2 million litres of jet fuel.

President Kagame was pleased with the facility and said that the depot comes at a good time when the price of petrol is going down and this is an advantage to Rwanda since it has no natural petroleum source.

“We celebrate the capacity gained in the petroleum sector because it can solve a number of issues and the fuel depot virtually brings Rwanda close to the ports,” Kagame said.

The new depot which was constructed on a 12-hectare piece of land is projected to fulfill the necessity of a modernized and international fuel depot that entails a comprehensive fire fighting facility with water storage capacity of 1.5 million litres, loading and offloading gantries (that can handle 7 loading and three offloading trucks simultaneously), CCTV surveillance, well-equipped laboratory for product quality management and parking capacity of over 100 long haul trucks.

Chairperson of SP Group Mr. Egide Gatera said that the facility will bring Rwanda’s fuel storage to a long-awaited ambition.

According to Mr. Gatera, SP have plans of further increasing the storage capacity of the depot to get to 60 million litres in the next five years. At the same time, they intend to enlarge its LPG storage capacity from 120MT to 1500MT.

SOCIETE PETROLIERE S.A.R.L is a petroleum company in Rwanda which offers a variety of petroleum products including petro, diesel, Paraffin among others.