The frustration of queues stalling the fuel revolution

The car fuel revolution is gaining momentum in Tanzania, but a lack of petrol stations means it is stuck in second gear.

Like Nigeria and some other countries on the continent, Tanzania is starting to embrace compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative to petrol and diesel.

It is considered cleaner and better for the environment than those fossil fuels, but its relative cheapness is the biggest draw for the 5,000 or so drivers in the East African country who have embraced the switch – especially commercial drivers.

This represents a small fraction of vehicles in Tanzania, but early adopters are paving the way for wider adoption of CNG – the government reportedly wants near-total adoption by mid-century.

Tanzania has large reserves of gas under the sea, and for those who refuel, CNG can cost less than half the equivalent of petrol.

The potential saving was enough to convince taxi owner Samuel Amos Irube to part with around 1.5 million Tanzanian shillings ($620; £495) to convert his three-wheeled vehicle – known locally as a bajaji – to CNG.

But now that he has to get gas twice a day, he often spends more time waiting at a gas station in the largest city of Dar es Salaam than earning money.

There are only four places in the Tanzania shopping center where he can charge.

Quietly frustrated, he says he has to wait at least three hours every time he wants to fill up, but the savings make it worth it, as he only spends 40% of what he would for the equivalent amount of petrol.

The slow-moving queues of vehicles at the Ubungo CNG station wind along the road. Things are tidy – there are three clear lines, one for cars and two for badgers – but the irritation is palpable.

Medadi Kichungo Ngoma, who has been in line for two hours, stares at the vehicles in front of him as he waits next to his silver pick-up truck.

He told the BBC he was among the first people in the city to convert his vehicle, which involved fitting a large cylinder to the back of a pick-up, and recalls the short queues.

“Sometimes an employee had to be called in to serve us,” he says.

He laments that the infrastructure has not expanded to meet the growing demand.

This is also the refrain heard at the city's largest CNG filling station near the airport.

Sadiki Christian Mkumbuka has been waiting here for three hours with his Bajajji.

“The queue is very long,” he says, adding that “we should have as many stations as there are gas cars.”

But the price will keep people coming back.

“I pay 15,000 shillings ($6; £5) to fill up my 11kg tank of gas, which lasts about 180km,” said another driver, who identified himself as Juma, adding that it was more less than half the cost of gasoline to travel the same distance.

The drive to encourage drivers to adopt CNG-powered vehicles in Tanzania was started more than a decade ago, but did not begin in earnest until 2018.

The project managers admit that they did not anticipate the rapid increase in demand.

Aristides Kato, head of CNG projects at the state-owned oil firm Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), told the BBC that there had recently been a “very dramatic increase” in the use of natural gas by vehicle owners.

“We found that we didn't have enough infrastructure to support the demand for gas-powered vehicles,” he admits.

But authorities want more people to switch to CNG because it's a relatively clean-burning fossil fuel that results in fewer emissions of nearly all types of air pollutants, according to the United Nations.

Additionally, locally available natural gas should allow for lower prices than gasoline. But the cost of converting a vehicle, plus the lower mileage a full tank gives the driver compared to petrol or diesel, may put some people off.

However, the manager of Taqa Arabia, the Egyptian company that operates the gas station near the airport, sees the growing demand as “a positive sign that the use of CNG has started to develop in Tanzania”.

Amr Abushadi says his firm plans to build more stations and hopes to “replicate our success story in Egypt by helping the (Tanzanian) government make the best use of natural gas as an affordable, reliable and cleaner source of energy “.

Egypt pioneered the use of CNG on the continent, with around half a million vehicles converted to the dual-fuel system since the 1990s.

Other African countries that have approved the use of CNG for vehicles include South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

Tanzanian authorities have committed to building more infrastructure and hope to encourage more private investors to get involved.

A central CNG “mother station” is being built in Dar es Salaam by TPDC, which will supply gas to smaller stations across the country.

In addition, TPDC is acquiring five mobile CNG units to be deployed in Dar es Salaam, as well as in the capital Dodoma and Morogoro.

In the medium term, these measures should lead to shorter queues, but for now, the lack of filling stations will continue to frustrate Tanzania's CNG pioneers.