Bitumen in Kenya
This article talks about Kenya, the country’s economy, situation, energy sources, and bitumen in Kenya.
Keep reading to get to know more about Kenya. Nairobi is the largest and capital city of Kenya.
Mombasa also is the second-largest city of the country.
Kenya is a neighbor to Tanzania and Uganda, sharing Lake Victoria between themselves.
Therefore, agricultural activities are more developed in these countries than others.
In other words, agriculture is highly important to Kenya’s economy, chiefly tea, coffee, and flowers.
Kenya Agriculture
Kenya is one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa. However, nearly half of the 50 million residents live below the poverty line.
In fact, about two-thirds of Kenyans do not have access to basic financial services such as bank accounts.
USAID supports financial growth by encouraging trade, supporting small businesses, promoting the development of the energy and horticulture quarters.
To be more specific, agriculture acts as a motive for the economic growth in Kenya. About 75 percent of Kenyans making their lives by expending time on Agricultural activities.
In 2005, agriculture, including tree-planting and fishing, accounted for 24% of GDP, as well as for 18% of wage employment and 50% of profits from trading.
The major cash crops are tea, horticultural products, and coffee. These are the two most valuable crops of all Kenya’s exports.
The production of major food substances such as corn is dependent on sharp climatic changes.
Generally speaking, Kenya is a low middle-income country, manufacturing activities value about 14% of the GDP and industrial activities are concentrated around the three largest urban centers of Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu.
How climatic changes in Kenya affect the imports and exports?
The climate of Kenya varies from city to city. To be more specific, sometimes in some regions the weather is cool, and in some other regions, it’s rather hot.
However, the climate along the coast is tropical. For instance, November & December are the months of short rains.
A period of random, short rains between November and December that lasts about a month. The rain is sometimes like cats and dogs, however, it mostly happens in the evening. January & February are the dry months in the rainy season.
In these months, rain is less. March, April & May get the most rain. It’s very cloudy, especially in the mountains, including Aberdare NP and Laikipia Plateau. Moisture is higher and is tangible in the coastal regions.
June, July, August, September & October are the coldest months.
These months are the most suitable time for running constructions and applying bitumen in Kenya. As you may know, monsoon times are not the proper time to start the constructions, and road paving. Therefore, the hot and dry months, we can see the high rate of imports and exports of bitumen in Kenya.
Kenya energy and oil reserves
Kenya has a cement production industry.
Besides, it has an oil refinery that refines imported crude petroleum into
petroleum products, mostly for the domestic market. Also, a well-to-do sector named as Jua kali engages in small-scale manufacturing of household goods, auto parts, and farm tools. The largest portion of Kenya’s electricity supply comes from geothermal power, followed by hydroelectric sites. A petroleum-fired plant on the coast, geothermal facilities at Olkaria (near Nairobi), and electricity imported from Uganda are the rest of the supply. A 2,000 MW power line from Ethiopia is about to complete.
Kenya’s installed capacity rose from 1,142 megawatts between 2001 and 2003 to 2,341 in 2016. The state-owned Kenya Electricity Generating Company, established in 1997 under the title of Kenya Power Company, manages the generation of electricity, while Kenya Power deals with the electricity transportation and disposal system in the country. Kenya has deposits of oil in Turkana. Tullow Oil measures the country’s oil reserves to be around one billion barrels. Exploration is proceeding to determine if there are more resources. Kenya currently imports all crude petroleum bases. Petroleum has taken about 20% to 25% of the national import invoice.
In 2011 Kenya imported
about 33,000 bbl. (5,200 m3) per day of crude oil only from the United Arab Emirates, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
Kenya imported 51,000 bbl. (8,100 m3) per day of refined oil products and
bitumen in 2011, due to KNBS. Moreover, Kenya has a product pipeline system
that transports petroleum products from Mombasa to domestic areas. Kenya
had one of the biggest crude oil refineries in East Africa. The refinery typically
performed below capacity and processed heavy crude
from Abu Dhabi and other heavy Middle-Eastern crude grades.
Consequently, the refinery stopped in February 2016. 2012 was the first time when Kenyan discovered oil.
As of May 2016, proven resources were estimated at 766 million barrels.
This put Kenya ahead of Uzbekistan in the global rankings.
One of the Kenyan companies believes that the national reserves are more than 1 billion barrels.
Production of bitumen in Kenya
After the failure of discussions on the building of the Uganda-Kenya Crude Oil Pipeline, Kenya began to make plans to build the 892 km (554 mi) Kenya Crude Oil Pipeline (costing $1.1 billion) on its own, expected in 2022. To be more specific, an oil company is about to produce 13,000 m3 (80,000 bbl.) per day, so Kenya expects not to develop an oil and bitumen refinery, as that would necessitate 64,000 m3 (400,000 bbl.) per day to work commercially.