Rise of autogas brings new opportunities and dangers

For decades, cooking gas has largely been used to fire Kenyan kitchens, initially limited to urban homes and hotels. It has, however, over the last 15 years expanded to rural kitchens, schools and roadside cafes.

This growth trend is set for major disruption in the coming years as motor vehicles ditch petrol for autogas.

Over 20,000 Kenyan motorists, mostly in Nairobi, have ditched the petrol pump for the LPG nozzle, lured by a 50 per cent saving on fuel costs.

This market-driven shift offers a lifeline for transporters such as taxi operators and firms operating fleets, but also gives a boost to the country’s green goals.

It is, however, seen to come with risks such as new safety and health dangers. The taxman is also losing revenue as people run away from heavily taxed petrol and diesel.

At the household level, there are concerns that autogas might eventually make cooking more expensive.

Petroleum Outlets Association of Kenya Chief Executive John Njogu explained that while autogas has been in use in Kenya since 2018, it started gaining traction in 2021 when fuel prices started rising, and autogas was seen as a cheaper option. 

After dropping to a decade low of Sh83 per litre of petrol in 2020 following the Covid-19 pandemic, local pump prices began to rise in 2021 and over a two-year period hit a historical high of Sh217 per litre of petrol and Sh205 for diesel in Nairobi in October 2023.

Autogas is still a lot cheaper at the moment, retailing at between Sh90 and Sh100, compared to petrol at Sh180. 

“Its impetus came through the fact that it offered a cheaper option. Every time there is a disruption, and there is an issue with the affordability of a product, alternatives begin to appear. High fuel prices provided an opportunity for autogas to make inroads in the country. People were looking for cheaper products,” said Njogu, who, alongside other industry players, convened a first autogas meeting in 2023 to explore how to increase awareness of autogas in Kenya.

“The first adopters were taxis because the biggest opex for them is fuel, and if it was going to save a coin, it helped them make the decision quickly.”

Kenya is following a global trend seen in Turkey, where 40 per cent of passenger cars run on LPG, and in Poland, 15 per cent of all registered cars.

Others are South Korea, which initially limited use of autogas to taxis but opened it up to private motorists in 2019, Italy, Ukraine and Russia. Njogu believes Autogas could eventually capture 10 per cent of the national fleet—roughly 400,000 vehicles.

In Kenya, there has been slow but steady growth in the use of autogas. Industry players estimate that about 20,000 cars have been converted to run on LPG but also retain the petrol function.

According to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra), there were 18 licensed refilling stations as of June 2025, which industry players say have in six months increased to about 40 by the end of 2025.

“In Nairobi, there is an adequate retail network, and you can actually run an LPG in town because you will always find a refilling station, but outside of town, more stations still need to come up,” he said.

“There’s opportunity for growth. I believe that autogas can get to 10 per cent of the fleet on the road, so that’s about 400,000 vehicles out of four million vehicles. Autogas as a fuel can have its niche and stay within this niche,” he said.

 Joel Kamau, chief executive of Proto Energy, which owns Otogas-branded autogas refilling outlets, noted that beyond cost savings, autogas is cleaning up Kenya’s hard-to-abate transport sector. “We are just scratching the surface of the country,” he said, 

Kenya has committed to an ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 32 per cent by 2030. With the transport sector currently accounting for a massive chunk of urban air pollution, the shift to LPG offers a way to slow down the pollution.

Autogas is a cleaner-burning fuel than petrol and diesel. On average, vehicles running on LPG emit about 20 per cent less Carbon Dioxide and 90 per cent less Carbon Monoxide than their petrol counterparts.

LPG does not produce particulate matter, the soot that causes respiratory illnesses and poor urban air quality.

Kamau notes that autogas offers a better solution for sustainable transport that supports Kenya’s green goals. “When we think about practical solutions to cleaner mobility, I think Autogas becomes the biggest solution that we have access to,” he said.

With the growth in autogas, there are concerns that the growing car conversions could lead to a scenario where the motorists dictate consumption patterns for LPG, edging out households. 

Autogas could, in the coming years, dictate the growth patterns in the LPG market as it bypasses the cylinder management nightmares that oil marketers have been grappling with.

To serve the household market, companies have had to invest heavily in physical cylinders that are frequently lost and end up being illegally refilled by unscrupulous players. With Autogas, on the other hand, vehicle owners convert at their cost, and LPG suppliers compete with retail networks, as is the case with petrol. 

Cars also buy huge volumes compared to households, often returning to the stations to refuel daily, and in the case of taxis, every few hours. A household using a 13 kg cylinder could take a month or more before the next refill.

Despite the huge benefits for firms in serving the auto industry, Njogu says autogas is likely to be a niche fuel and is unlikely to significantly disrupt the household market. “I don’t think it will compete,” he said.

Kamau also noted that the industry is likely to benefit as more cars adopt autogas, as this would result in expansion in infrastructure, as companies invest in both large-scale storage and retail infrastructure.

Growth in infrastructure, both in Mombasa and across the country, he noted, would play a part in ensuring that the market is adequately supplied, preventing scenarios where demand overwhelms supply, leading to the surge in prices.

“Kenya’s capacity to handle imports today is more than 45,000 tonnes, which is sufficient,t but we also have three other terminals that are coming up that will boost this capacity,” said Kamau.

They include Lake Gas’ recently commissioned 10,000 tonne facility at Vipingo in Kwale, adding to Africa Gas Oil Ltd’s (Agol) facility with a capacity of 25,000 tonnes. Other facilities in the pipeline include Taifa Gas (30,000 tonnes) and the 30,000-tonne facility that will be put up at KPRL in Changamwe.

While the players do not see the auto industry competing with the household, autogas is seen emerging as a driver for the consumption of LPG in Kenya.

Industry data shows that consumption of LPG in the nine months to September last year grew 17.7 per cent to 358,860 tonnes from 304,900 tonnes over a similar period in 2024.

While LPG consumption has, over the last decade, registered 14 per cent growth on average annually, analysts see the contribution from autogas in consumption patterns becoming noticeable.

As motorists increasingly use autogas, which is pulled from the same pool as cooking gas, the government might consider introducing taxes on LPG, as fleet owners might be seen to be running away from taxes that petrol and diesel users are paying. 

Comparison between the retail prices of a litre of petrol and a litre of LPG is seen in taxes, whereby Sh81 of the pump price of petrol is in taxes. Loaded with the same taxes, a litre of LPG, currently priced at between Sh90 and Sh100, could retail at nearly similar prices to a litre of petrol.

“We hope it will stay like that (in terms of taxes) up to 2030, so that it continues to encourage penetration because we are still at a very low penetration,” said Njogu.