Two associations of independent petrol station owners have told their members to stop buying fuel from oil marketing companies that charge more than the wholesale price the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) allows. In a joint communiqué dated 27th October 2026, the Petroleum Outlets Association of Kenya (POAK) and the Kenya Independent Petroleum Dealers Association (KIPEDA) say oil companies have been selling above the cap since the current pricing cycle started on 15th October, and that independent stations across the country are already facing stock-outs.
Independent stations are the ones that don’t belong to an oil company’s own network. They buy their fuel from oil marketing companies (OMCs), the licensed firms that sell petrol, diesel and kerosene in bulk to stations. So if your nearest station is an independent and its supplier won’t sell at the legal price, it may run out.
How the two caps work
EPRA sets two ceilings every month. One is the pump price, the most a station can charge you. The other is the wholesale price, the most an oil company can charge the station. For the period from 15th October to 14th November, EPRA’s pricing notice puts the Nairobi wholesale cap at KES 211.89 a litre for super petrol, KES 212.68 for diesel and KES 204.79 for kerosene. The pump caps are KES 226.96, KES 227.76 and KES 219.87, the increases we covered when EPRA announced them on 14th October.
That leaves a gap of about KES 15 a litre between what a Nairobi station pays and what it can charge. The same notice shows where that money goes: a dealers’ margin of KES 12.78 a litre, which EPRA lists as the retail investment and operating margin, plus KES 1.18 for delivering the fuel to stations within 40 km of Nairobi. Add 8% VAT on those two and you get KES 15.08, within a cent of the gap for all three fuels. That’s our own sum from EPRA’s cost breakdown.
The pump cap doesn’t move when a supplier overcharges. If an oil company charges a station KES 5 a litre above the wholesale cap, a third of that KES 15 is gone, and the station still can’t charge you more than KES 226.96 for petrol in Nairobi. That’s what the associations mean by a margin squeeze, and it’s why their members say they’re choosing between shutting down and trading at a loss.
The communiqué doesn’t say how far above the cap oil companies are selling, and it doesn’t name a single oil company. It also gets some of EPRA’s figures slightly wrong. It has KES 211.80 and KES 212.60 for wholesale petrol and diesel, where EPRA’s notice has KES 211.89 and KES 212.68, and KES 227.27 for diesel at the pump instead of KES 227.76.
What the dealers want
The associations say they took the matter to EPRA and to the State Department for Petroleum as soon as the market opened on 15th October, and that 12 days later there had been no compliance or enforcement. They are advising independent operators countrywide to “immediately suspend the purchase of petroleum products at rates exceeding the gazetted EPRA wholesale limits”. They want EPRA and the State Department to sanction the oil companies concerned, and they say they are open to talks with the ministry and the regulator.
The advice only covers fuel priced above the cap, so a station whose supplier sells at or below the legal wholesale price can keep buying. How many stations stop depends on how many suppliers are charging above it, and the communiqué doesn’t give that number either.
EPRA’s letter the same day
So far, EPRA hasn’t published a response to the dealers. On 27th October, though, its Director General Edward Kinyua wrote to the chief executives of oil marketing companies, promising that where an OMC takes in more fuel than the volumes factored into the current and next pricing cycles, “the excess volumes will be due for advance sales compensation”. The letter says this is to keep supply uninterrupted “and to compensate OMCs exposure to the price lag”, with the extra volumes verified against Kenya Revenue Authority data.
The price lag comes from how EPRA sets the caps. It works out each cycle’s prices from the cost of fuel that has already landed in the country, which for this cycle means September’s cargoes. International petrol prices in EPRA’s own table rose every month from June to September. When prices climb like that, a cargo bought now can cost more than the ones the caps were built on. The letter doesn’t mention the dealers’ complaint. We read it as EPRA accepting that oil companies are carrying costs the October caps don’t cover, and promising to make that up to them later.
What it means for you
At the pump, the cap still applies at every station, branded or independent, and EPRA takes complaints through its website. What you’re more likely to run into is a station with no fuel. Shortages reach past motorists, too: in May we reported that Safaricom had arranged fuel directly with selected oil companies to keep the generators at its base stations running.
EPRA’s next review is due on 14th November. If international prices stay high, the gap between what fuel costs oil companies and what the caps allow will still be there, and the compensation EPRA has promised goes to oil companies that take in extra fuel. Until EPRA enforces the wholesale cap or says how it will handle the overcharging, independent dealers are the ones absorbing the difference, and their stations are the most likely to run dry.
Join the discussion