Kenya's Cooking Gas War: Brands Battle at the Kiosk While One Mombasa Jetty Controls SupplyKenya's Cooking Gas War: Brands Battle at the Kiosk While One Mombasa Jetty Controls Supply

Why it matters: about one Kenyan household in four cooks with gas, and the government wants seven in ten by 2028. Cooking gas prices are not capped by the regulator, unlike petrol, diesel and kerosene, so the price a family pays depends on how much competition survives between the ship and the stove.

With up to 1.5 million households forced to find a new fuel after the ethanol supplier Koko Networks shut down in January, and paraffin now dearer than gas for the same heat, that question reaches far beyond the middle class.

Gas overtakes paraffin on the cost of heat

Gas gained an unexpected advantage in October. The average litre of kerosene rose 14.7% in a month to KSh 220.88 ($1.70), while a 13kg gas refill rose 0.3% to KSh 3,429.61 ($26.40), according to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics price data reported by Business Today on 30 October.

The comparison needs care, because a litre of kerosene and a kilo of gas are different things. Using standard energy values of roughly 46 megajoules in a kilo of gas and roughly 34.5 in a litre of kerosene, a 13kg cylinder holds about as much heat as 17.3 litres of paraffin.

At October's average prices, those 17.3 litres would cost about KSh 3,829 ($29.48), against KSh 3,429.61 for the gas. In September, before the pump price rise, the same paraffin would have cost about KSh 3,340 ($25.71), slightly less than the KSh 3,419.24 ($26.32) gas refill. The order flipped in a single month.

The calculation has limits. It ignores stove efficiency, which usually favours gas, and the upfront cost of a cylinder and burner, which favours paraffin. Many poorer households also buy kerosene by the half-litre and cannot pay for 13kg at once.

Kerosene's jump followed the regulator's October review, which raised the Nairobi kerosene ceiling by KSh 28.49 ($0.22) a litre, and Mwenendo has reported that it drove the steepest monthly rise among pump fuels in October's inflation figures.

Gas prices, by contrast, have eased since spring. The bureau's average 13kg price was KSh 3,471.58 ($26.73) in May, after the Iran war pushed global propane prices up, and has since slipped about 1.2%.

One jetty lands nine kilos in ten

The gate has a name. In the six months to December 2025, African Gas and Oil Limited (AGOL), owned by the Mombasa businessman Mohammed Jaffer, handled about 207.99 million kilos of imported gas, roughly 90% of recorded imports, according to the regulator's biannual statistics as summarised by Billionaires.Africa in August.

Lake Gas, a Tanzanian operator with a 10,000-tonne terminal at Vipingo in Kilifi, handled about 22.02 million kilos.

Kenya's entire installed gas storage stood at 44,430 tonnes in March 2025, according to the regulator's medium-term petroleum plan. That is under five weeks of national demand at 2025 rates.

The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority has acknowledged the problem. Its Energy and Petroleum Statistics Report for the year to June 2026, published in September, says two new facilities will add 60,000 tonnes of handling capacity and support an open tender system intended to increase competition.

A marketer with no berth of its own pays whatever the terminal owner charges to land and store its cargo. Those fees are not published, which means nobody outside the industry can say how much of the KSh 3,429.61 refill price is set at the jetty.

A crowded counter with no published scoreboard

At the retail end the market looks busy. TotalEnergies, Vivo Energy's Shell Afrigas, Rubis with its K-Gas brand, Proto Energy's ProGas, Hashi, Lake Gas, Ola and others all sell 6kg and 13kg cylinders through petrol stations, supermarkets and estate kiosks.

Prices vary widely. A spot check by The Star in April found 13kg refills selling for KSh 2,400 to KSh 3,500 ($18.48 to $26.94), with Shell Afrigas and TotalEnergies usually at the top and ProGas cheaper. In September, Switch News put TotalEnergies at about KSh 3,400 ($26.17) and Rubis at about KSh 3,202.50 ($24.65) for 13kg.

That spread between the cheapest and dearest refill is the clearest evidence of competition in the market. Premium brands sell on safety, valve quality and station networks; cheaper ones sell on price and estate distribution.

What nobody can say is who is winning. The regulator publishes each company's share of petrol, diesel, kerosene and jet fuel sales: Vivo Energy led with 19.70% in the year to June 2026, data reported by Business.co.ke shows. Its market share tables leave out cooking gas, so there is no official ranking of gas brands.

Switching is also harder than it looks. Each brand refills its own cylinders, and the regulator treats refilling or repainting a rival's cylinder as illegal. A household that wants to change brand often has to buy a new cylinder or find a dealer willing to swap. In August, Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi said the crackdown on illegal refilling would be intensified and announced plans to track cylinders by serial number.

Demand keeps rising, but more slowly

Kenyans used 475,943 tonnes of cooking gas in 2025, up 14.7% on 2024, according to Petroleum Institute of East Africa figures that match the regulator's report. Use per person rose to 8.9kg from 7.9kg, the regulator says, against a government target of 15kg.

Growth has cooled as prices climbed. Consumption rose 14.59% in the second half of 2025, but only 10.82% in the first half of 2026, to 248,820 tonnes, the Daily Nation reported from official data. The figures suggest higher prices are slowing new users more than they are pushing existing ones away.

Taxes have moved the wrong way for buyers. Gas has been exempt from VAT since 2023, but a gazette order raised the Petroleum Development Levy on it to KSh 5.40 ($0.04) a kilo from 40 cents, The Star reported. On a 13kg cylinder that is KSh 70.20 ($0.54), up from KSh 5.20 ($0.04): about 2% of the October average price.

The Consumer Federation of Kenya called the rate "a direct contradiction of the government's own clean cooking policy".

The Koko shutdown added a new pool of buyers. Koko's ethanol fuel served up to 1.5 million households before the company closed on 31 January after the government declined to authorise its carbon credit sales, TechCabal reported in February. Refillers told the site that former customers were mixing gas, charcoal and kerosene depending on cash.

Taifa Gas slips to 2027 as the tender plan stalls

The most important new entrant is Taifa Gas, a Tanzanian company chaired by the businessman Rostam Aziz. Its KSh 16B ($123.17M) terminal at the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone will hold 30,000 tonnes in 12 tanks, about two-thirds of Kenya's entire 2025 storage.

In August, Investments, Trade and Industry Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui said it would open within three months. When the Senate energy committee visited in October, it was 85% complete, with commissioning expected in the first quarter of 2027, Radio Kaya reported. Taifa is also building about ten inland filling points, from Garissa to Bungoma, so it can sell under its own name rather than only rent storage.

A second facility is further off. The Nigerian firm Asharami plans a 30,000-tonne gas terminal at the old Kenya Petroleum Refineries site in Changamwe, with construction from October 2026 and completion before the end of 2028, The Standard reported.

The policy fix is stuck too. The Cabinet approved importing gas through a government-run open tender in December 2024, with bidders competing on margin.

In November 2025 the National Assembly's Committee on Delegated Legislation recommended annulling the regulations that would have made private terminals common-user facilities with tariffs set by the regulator, citing late tabling and weak public participation.

The regulator says the new terminals will support the tender system, but no start date has been set.

Meanwhile, the regulator issued a notice on 30 October requiring electronic clearance of fuel and gas imports through the national single window, with public forums in six towns in November, Kenyans.co.ke reported. The change improves tracking but does nothing directly for terminal access.

Who holds the advantage, and what buyers should check

On the evidence available, AGOL holds the strongest position in the market, because it controls the narrowest point. The big fuel companies hold the strongest retail brands and balance sheets. The budget brands compete hardest on price.

Pay-as-you-cook firms that sell gas in small prepaid amounts are proving costly to run: M-Gas, part-owned by Safaricom and supplied with cylinders by TotalEnergies, made an operating loss of KSh 3.14B ($24.2M) in 2024, TechTrendsKE reported from the accounts of its UK parent, Circle Gas.

Mwenendo's reading is that prices across all brands are unlikely to fall meaningfully until a second large jetty is working, because that is where costs no retailer controls are set. If Taifa opens on time in early 2027 and sells to rival brands at published rates, wholesale competition could reach the kiosk within months. If it mainly supplies its own network, the jetty bottleneck may simply gain a second owner.

For households, the practical steps are to compare the price per kilo across brands in your estate, to check the seal and the dealer's licence, and to count the cost of a new cylinder before switching. For investors, the stake is the same as in Mwenendo's editorial on Dangote's Kenya Pipeline stake: who controls shared infrastructure decides who earns the margin.

The regulator could help immediately by publishing two things within its reach: each brand's share of gas sales, as it does for petrol and diesel, and the fees charged to land and store gas at Mombasa. Until then, Kenya's cooking gas competition is being judged on the one number buyers can see, and much of that number may be set before the cylinder reaches the shop.