Absa Bank Kenya and Vivo Energy Kenya signed a financing agreement in Nairobi on Thursday 17 September 2026 that will let Shell service station dealers borrow to pay landowners rent up front, and to build new stations. Neither company said how big the facility is, what it costs a dealer, or how many dealers can use it.
Vivo Energy Kenya is the company that sells Shell-branded fuel in Kenya. It is not Shell. It bought Shell’s Kenyan downstream business in November 2012 and licenses the brand, which is why the sign says Shell and the accounts say Vivo. The group behind it has been wholly owned by the Swiss commodities trader Vitol since July 2022, when Vitol took it private and pulled it off the London Stock Exchange. Across Africa and Jordan, Vivo Energy runs around 4,200 stations in 29 markets under the Shell and Engen brands.
In Kenya it is the largest fuel retailer. EPRA’s figures for the six months to December 2025 put Vivo Energy Kenya at 20.56% of fuel sold, ahead of TotalEnergies on 14.01% and Rubis on 13.77%. Those three together fell below half the market for the first time, with 149 licensed oil marketers competing for the rest. Vivo Energy Kenya opened its 350th Shell station in Nakuru in July 2026.
Land
A fuel station needs a corner plot on a road that carries traffic, and almost nobody building one owns that plot. They lease it. Landowners with a site worth a station know it, and they want the rent before the first pump goes in.
The National Oil Corporation of Kenya publishes its own leasing terms, and they show the industry’s shape: a minimum lease of 15 years, with rent payable a year in advance. Private landowners on a busy junction often ask for more than one year. A dealer who hands over several years of rent on signing has put a large sum into ground they will never own, and it is money that is then not buying fuel, paying staff or stocking the shop.
That is what Absa is lending against. The bank pays the landowner for the agreed period, the dealer repays Absa over time, and the dealer’s cash stays in the business. The same facility covers construction of additional sites.
One thing the deal does not resolve is how many dealers it reaches. Vivo Energy’s own description of its retail model says the majority of its sites are owned by the company and operated by local dealers, which means the landowner sits opposite Vivo Energy, not the dealer, at most stations. The dealers who do hold their own leases are the target here, and neither company has said how many of the 350 that is.
What Absa has not said
Absa put no number on the facility, though it has put numbers on every other deal like it this year. Its KES 4 billion distributor financing programme with Unilever Kenya in July came with a figure, a phased rollout and a target of 38 distributors. The relaunched asset finance product behind August’s Simba Corporation deal carries a KES 100 billion three-year commitment and published loan-to-value ratios. The Vivo Energy announcement carries none of that. We have asked Absa for the facility size, the pricing and the number of eligible dealers, and will update this piece when it answers.
All three deals were signed by the same person. Renato D’souza joined Absa as business banking director at the start of 2026 after nine years at Stanbic, where he ran commercial banking. Unilever in July, Simba in August, Vivo Energy in September. Each deal attaches Absa to one large company’s network and then lends to the smaller businesses inside it. The signing also lands a week after Yusuf Omari was confirmed as Absa Bank Kenya’s chief executive on 10 September, after 17 years as the bank’s finance chief.
Absa is not first to the forecourt. KCB Bank Kenya and Pesapal announced a tie-up in November 2025 to put Pesapal’s forecourt management system into more than 10,000 fuel dealers across East Africa, with KCB using the sales data it generates to underwrite stock and working capital loans. KCB’s product is secured on a station’s throughput. Absa’s is secured on the dealer’s lease.
Absa and Shell have worked together before, though on the other side of the counter: a card promotion giving Absa debit and credit cardholders KES 2 back per litre on Fridays ran until 31 December 2025. Vivo Energy Kenya managing director Peter Murungi, who has held the job since December 2019, framed Thursday’s agreement as a beginning. “Vivo Energy Kenya has started a financial partnership journey with Absa Bank Kenya,” he said in the companies’ statement.
Kenya took until July 2026 to reach 350 stations, on a network the group says it adds to every three days on average worldwide. If the Absa facility works as both companies describe it, station 351 onwards should arrive faster. Counting them is easier than waiting for either company to publish a shilling figure.
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