Tanzania: Cooking gas prices rise by 10pc amid fuel crisis

Dar es Salaam. Choices for cooking fuels are increasingly becoming limited to households, as prices for cooking gas has also been increased by at least 10 per cent. Early this week, Oryx Tanzania limited, which holds about 60 per cent of the market share for the commodity, announced new prices that would see customers incur an extra Sh4,000 for every gas-filled cylinder of any size.

“I had preferred using cooking gas to electricity and charcoal due to the simple fact that gas was cheaper, faster and cleane, but with such price volatility, my options become more limited,” Mrs Mdoe, a mother of three said after visiting a retailer shop at Mabibo.

Experts say the increase, coupled with the current high fuel prices and unreliable power supply would make cooking fuels very expensive, thereby increasing the cost of living in the short term.As many households resort to charcoal as a cheaper alternative, concerns abound on the increase in the rate of deforestation.

Already forest loss in Tanzania is estimated at 91,200 hectares per annum. And if the current deforestation rate is not checked, Tanzania’s entire forest cover will disappear in about 10 to 16 decades, according to surveys.

Dealers say the cooking gas price increase has been caused by rise in operational costs, depreciation of shilling against dollar and a shortage in the supply of the commodity on the world market.A survey carried out in retail shops around Dar es Salaam by The Citizen established this week that the price of a six-kilogramme cylinder rose from Sh18,500 to Sh21,000, while a 15kg cylinder was sold at Sh49,000 from Sh44,000. The price of a 38kg cylinder increased to Sh122,000 from 111,500 last week.

 “New prices are due to continued shilling depreciation against dollar, which we use to import the commodity,” the managing director of Oryx Limited Tanzania, Mr Hamisi Ramadhan told The Citizen in a telephone interview.Besides, Mr Ramadhan said the move has also been prompted by general increase in operational costs and that the company was not adding prices to make exorbitant profits but to recover part of the surging operational costs.
There are three main companies selling gas in Tanzania, with Oryx holding about 60 per cent of the market share. Others are BP and Mohan