APA – Kigali (Rwanda) – As part of national efforts to enhance the supply and promote the utilisation of cooking gas in the country, Rwanda is investing about $38 million in a new project dedicated to establish Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage facilities, local media reported Friday quoting an official source in Kigali.
The Rwandan Minister of Infrastructure, Ernest Nsabimana, explained that regulating cooking gas prices in the country has been constrained by inadequate storage and supply, an issue that the project will help solve.
“We are looking for ways to set up storage capacity (of cooking gas reserve) that can ensure supply of at least three months,” Nsabimana said, indicating that currently, the available storage capacity can cover the supply of less than two weeks.
Estimates indicate that at least 3.5 million kilograms of LPG are sold per month in Rwanda.
Rwandan firms engaged in the gas business have to import LPG from Tanzanian and Kenyan firms which also source the gas from other countries that produce it, it said.
As a result, Rwandan firms pay more on shipping the gas into the country than they would if they purchased it directly from producing countries.
According to the Fifth Rwanda Population and Housing Census 2022 by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, the main sources of energy for cooking used by the private households in the country are firewood (76 per cent) and charcoal (17 percent), and gas (5 percent).
CU/as/APA