Liquid fuels
Petroleum demand and pump prices
Retail pump prices in Nairobi and national petroleum product demand, drawn from EPRA price bulletins and the KNBS petroleum supply and demand tables.
Petrol, Aug 2026
214.03KSh/L
104% since Jan 2019
Diesel, Aug 2026
217.86KSh/L
Light diesel oil, retail
LPG, Dec 2023
3,032.62KSh
Per 13 kg cylinder
Domestic fuel demand 2023
5,102.4'000 t
-2.0% vs 2019
Retail fuel prices, 2019–2026
Nairobi maximum retail prices, KSh per litre — petrol, diesel and illuminating kerosene (EPRA reviews to August 2026)
LPG cylinder price
KSh per 13 kg cylinder, to December 2023
Demand by petroleum product
'000 tonnes of domestic demand, 2019–2023
Petroleum supply and demand table
'000 tonnes, KNBS Table 9.2
| Product | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liquefied petroleum gas | 312.1 | 326.2 | 371.4 | 333.8 | 365.3 |
| Motor gasoline (premium) | 1,434.3 | 1,395.3 | 1,554.4 | 1,561.3 | 1,446.6 |
| Aviation spirit | 10.2 | 1.9 | 1.4 | 0.9 | 1.3 |
| Jet/turbo fuel | 699.4 | 394.8 | 506.8 | 592.3 | 669 |
| Illuminating kerosene | 168.3 | 127 | 111.3 | 89 | 55 |
| Light diesel oil | 2,198.7 | 2,157.6 | 2,305.7 | 2,219.7 | 2,186.9 |
| Heavy diesel oil | 1.3 | 1.8 | 0.8 | 0 | 1.3 |
| Fuel oil | 382.8 | 273.9 | 340.3 | 337.1 | 377 |
| TOTAL DOMESTIC DEMAND | 5,207.1 | 4,678.5 | 5,192.1 | 5,134.1 | 5,102.4 |
| Exports of petroleum fuels | 7 | 2.3 | 0.4 | 8 | 9.5 |
| TOTAL DEMAND | 5,214.1 | 4,680.8 | 5,192.5 | 5,142.1 | 5,111.9 |
| SUPPLY | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net imports of petroleum fuels | 5,682.2 | 4,920.4 | 5,827.6 | 5,453.6 | 4,016.2 |
| Adjustment1 | 468.1 | 239.5 | 635.1 | 311.5 | -1,095.7 |
| TOTAL SUPPLY | 5,214.1 | 4,680.8 | 5,192.5 | 5,142.1 | 5,111.9 |
Fuel density: why one reactor replaces a shipping lane
Usable energy per kilogram of fuel (MJ/kg, log scale) and annual fuel tonnage for 1,000 MW of continuous output
One kilogram of reactor fuel yields about 11,000× the energy of a kilogram of diesel. A 1,000 MW reactor consumes roughly 27 tonnes of fuel a year — two truckloads — against the 1.5 million tonnes of imported product an equivalent oil-fired fleet would burn. For an economy where petroleum dominates the import bill, that is a balance-of-payments argument as much as an energy one.