Currently, Rwanda imports all its petroleum products requirements from abroad since there is no local production. The consumption of petroleum in Rwanda stands at 23 million litres per month. This constitutes about 20% of total national imports and has been steadily rising in the past five years, with an average annual increase of 12 per cent.

The main policy objective for the sub-sector is to ensure safe, sufficient, reliable, sustainable and affordable supply of petroleum product. This entails boosting investments in supply and storage infrastructure. 

In order to address current sub-sector challenges, the Rwanda Energy Policy reinforces the implementation of existing sub-sector policies through the following objectives:

1. Accelerate regional cooperation and strategic infrastructure development to reduce the costs of procurement, transportation and storage of petroleum products.
   Project:
   Eldoret-Kampala-Kigali petroleum pipeline: the Governments of Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda have agreed   to promote investment for the extension of petroleum pipeline from Eldoret in Kenya to Kampala and Kigali. Feasibility study has been commissioned in 2014. Fund mobilization through the private sector is ongoing.

2. Ensure security of petroleum supply by ensuring adequate storage infrastructure and adequate strategic reserves:
   Ensure adequate storage infrastructure: currently Rwanda petroleum storage infrastructure essentially consists of government and private sector owned fuel depots equivalent to 72,000,000 litres as per table below:
    

Petroleum products storage Capacity [m³]
 

Ensure adequate petroleum strategic reserves:

Projects: 

1. Development of 60 million litters fuel storage facility for strategic reserves: 

   In order to ensure appropriate strategic reserve, GoR decided to maintain 60 million litters. In this framework, GoR through REG has signed an agreement with Societe Petroliere (SP) Ltd for the development of fuel storage facility for storing 50 million litres of its petroleum strategic reserves. The balance of 10 million litters will be stored in the existing Government storage facilities such as Bigogwe, Rwabuye and Gatsata.

2. Rehabilitation of existing Government fuel storage facilities

   In order to meet international standards, different strategies have been set for rehabilitation of the existing storage facilities. One of them is the PPP model where a private company take the Government depot on lease, manage it within a certain period and pay annual fee to the GoR during the concession.