Tanzanian Billionaire Aziz Begins $1.9-billion LPG Plant Construction in Mombasa

Taifa Gas, a Tanzanian company that supplies liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), has started building a Ksh.300-billion ($1.9 billion) plant and storage facilities for cooking gas at the port of Mombasa.

The project, located in the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone, is a major step for Taifa Gas as it grows its business beyond Tanzania and into the rest of East Africa.

Taifa Gas SEZ Kenya’s managing director, Veneranda Masoum, said the project will have a positive impact at the local and regional levels. “This is a big investment for Taifa Gas, expanding our operations from Tanzania to the wider East African community,” Masoum said.

The Kenyan government gave Aziz the green light to set up the LPG plant and storage facilities at the Mombasa port.

This is in line with a trade deal signed in April 2022 by former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu. The deal aims to lower the cost of transferring and transporting cooking gas from ships to the mainland, which will ultimately reduce cooking gas prices in Kenya.

The Taifa Gas facility will use advanced technologies in its supply chain, with the main goal of cutting down consumer prices. This will put Aziz in direct competition with Mombasa-based businessman Mohamed Jaffer, whose Africa Gas and Oil Ltd. handles 90 percent of the cooking gas imported for the Kenyan market.

Aziz’s entry signals major changes in East African cooking gas sector dynamics

Taifa Gas’s entry into the Kenyan market will create intense competition with established oil giants such as Vivo, Rubis, and Total, who are all competing for the more than 2.87 million households (or 23.9 percent of Kenyan households) that use cooking gas.

As Aziz enters the Kenyan cooking gas market, the East African region expects significant changes in the cooking gas sector, with potential benefits for consumers and the wider economy.