Long queues leading to petrol stations have continued to persist as motorists search for fuel.
This is despite the assurances by the Petroleum ministry last week that there is adequate fuel in the country.
The stretching queues have caused snarl-ups, with police having difficulties in controlling the motorists.
The fuel shortage is taking a toll on innocent citizens and it is confusing that the government claims that there is enough stock.
The oil firms had been withholding petroleum products, causing an artificial shortage and plunging the country into a crisis.
The marketers are protesting delays by the government to compensate them their margins which is about Sh32 billion – a figure that the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining disputes, saying it is Sh13 billion that is outstanding.
The government, last week, paid the oil firms Sh8.2 billion to settle a huge portion of the Sh13 billion it owes the firms, which had been expected to result in a swift resolution of the fuel shortage crisis.
Fuel supply in the country appeared to normalise towards the end of last week, with most of the retail stations reporting adequate stocks but a different scenario was unfolding on Sunday after stations reported dry pumps all over again.
According to a data by the Energy and Petroleum Authority (Epra), the Nairobi Joint Depot (NJD), from where both Rubis and Total get their supply, had sufficient product stocks by late last week.
Thursday, last week, the NJD had 1.59 million litres of petrol and 4.43 million litres of diesel products.
Total is the second largest fuel retailer in Kenya with a market share of 16.4 percent as at last December, only behind Vivo Energy Kenya (21.7 percent). Rubis is the third largest with a market share of 8.6 percent.
Overall, the Epra inventory showed there was a total stock of 212 million litres of petrol and 188 million litres of diesel in the country by last Thursday but marketers only took about 9.5 million litres of petrol and 11 million litres of diesel for sale locally and for export.
Vivo held huge stocks of 3.18 million litres of petrol and 3.89 million litres of diesel at its depot in Nairobi last Thursday.
On the same date, the marketer also had 2,796 litres of petrol and 11,209 litres of diesel at its depot in Mombasa – a position that corresponds to the high product sales by Vivo over the past two weeks as some of its rival curiously reported outages.
The firms are deliberately hoarding fuel in the hope of selling it at a higher price after fuel price review by Epra on Thursday, which is expected to raise the product’s cost.