Reading this article was the last straw for me, and I can't continue being silent.

So, could someone please explain to me why it seems like we're not gonna consume our Turkanese oil locally?

The way I see it, it'll save us lots of money if we refine that oil and sell it to Kenyans and other EACans, and do away with imports from the UAE. I think it makes more economic sense to do that, than to just export it.

Petroleum and its products currently accounts for 23% of our import expenditures.

Why don't we just do away with this importation? Why can't we just build a refinery hapo Eldoret or Turkana and use the products locally?

I'm not an economist, but I think using our own oil will help bring about - whatchamacallit? - a favourable balance of trade.

Is it that nobody has asked National Oil or the government this question? Is this a political issue? Did the government sign a long-term agreement with UAE to always buy oil from it, meaning that we'll keep buying from the emirs whether or not we have our own reserves?

Please school me, because maybe I'm just assuming that this thing is really simple when it's not.

Thanks.

Well this might not be accurate but, the cost of building a new refinery is huge plus our deposits are not that much to warrant such an investment, the refinery in Mombasa was built to refine a different kind of crude, we are told that the Turkana oil is waxy making it a challenge to refine and transport, I remember that the pipeline was to be heated to allow for the waxy oil.
Uhuru's plan is to export I guess he has already found a market but not sure if the price is right to break even, Kenya also tried screwing with our neighbours Uganda and SS, who would have made viable investments in a refinery and pipeline, I guess even the pipeline we said that we would build on our own will be cancelled just like the airport terminal, all in all this is Kenya.

So musimo tuendelee ku import will be cheaper? If that's the case why do we have oil? Just to sell to other countries, we are having oil to benefit other countries and not us?

Quality and quantity.
The saudis and iranians can output at 2-5usd barrel. They have nearly unlimited supply.
our breakeven is 50usd
and its been determined we will output a meager 2k barrel per day.

Read this http://www.nation.co.ke/...html-102gyv9/index.html
fanya feasibility study.

At some point Wazuan's will have start exploiting these opportunities as private investors. Unda chama,biz plan, leverage kidogo, tiny refinery done. Bure hizi ni gossip

Kenya's break-even price is 25-30 usd. Break even in the sense that you have paid for everything until it gets to the market. Selling at 50+ usd means you have churned a profit. I believe the article says the same.

Aren't we saying the same thing. We build a pipeline to transport lighter better quality crude from Lamu to Turkana, mix it with our shit and produce better quality petroleum products. the diff being we don't need to heat the pipe.

Our current daily consumption is a paltry 120BPD or thereabouts, when we move to middle income status, this will easily triple or quadruple to 500BPD minimum. We will need more oil so we either develop ours or lose more forex.

Have we considered the fact that we may get much lower prices for our oil than the indicated world crude prices due to quality. As with the pipeline, a tanker ferrying the crude to market will need to be heated as well?

unfortunately the policy makers are suffering from primitive thinking due to sizes of their brains or have no real intention to get us out of poverty

The billions lost in non-existent Arror & Kimwarer dams means we can take a loss in having a local refinery for local consumption but that again will create a new avenue for lost billions.

A local black Ghanaian owned company drilled and discovered some 1.5 billion barrels of Oil offshore Ghana coast in August 2019....

clearly trucking oil from Turkana to Mombasa is not profitable so what is the reason we are doing this?

Who are "they"? Do you realize that anyone with the money and expertise is free to put up an oil refinery at Turkana? In short, if you have the money and technical expertise or you can convince people with money and expertise to do so, go to Turkana and put up the refinery.