Turkana Oil Discovery, How Will It Affect Aviation In Kenya

[Capt. Bill]

With the discovery of oil in Turkana, will the
price of av gas/jet fuel go down thereby
reducing the cost of pilot training in Kenya
in the forthcoming years???
What are your views on this topic?

[dash200]

The price of the fuels will come down if: (1) Kenya, or the land where Turkana is, has an oil refinery and its engineers are competent enough to refine aviation fuel. Bear in mind that Jet A-1 is only a modified form of household kerosene (2) Even if you don't have a refinery, oil exports mean increasing foreign incomes which, if well managed by government, would translate into infrastructural and social development and by extension, more supply of these fuels. Government would have to be careful about inflation, though. (3) Then again, officials at the top might just siphon revenues into their own pockets. Just look what they're doing in Nigeria (4) And so, in a nutshell, oil in Turkana is a blessing, but whether human foibles won't get in the way is the million dollar question ;)

[Capt. Bill]

Kenya has an oil refinery in Mombasa city and the government is planning on building a much bigger one in lamu.
I'm sure if well managed, the prices of jet fuel will come down relatively thereby reducing the cost of pilot training.
I believe that if the oil prices come down, and the private sector invests considerably in pilot training, Kenya could become an option for carriers in Africa to carry out their av initio pilot training.

[pzu]

The 'proposed' refinery for Lamu is AFAIK purely linked to the existing oil developments of S Sudan

Though product from that refinery may be intended for the Kenya market, I u/stand present intentions are for an 'export refinery' probably geared to the Chinese market

That's not to say that any future Turkana developments won't be linked to the Lamu proposals and the local market

PZULBA - Out of Africa (Retired)