The vehicle fuel revolution is taking off in Tanzania, but a lack of petrol stations means it’s 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 seen as 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 nation who have embraced the switch – particularly commercial drivers.
This represents a small proportion of vehicles in Tanzania, but early adopters are paving the way for wider CNG adoption – the government reportedly wants near-total adoption by mid-century.
Tanzania has large gas reserves under the sea, and for gas guzzlers, CNG can cost less than half the equivalent of gasoline.
The potential savings were enough to convince taxi owner Samuel Amos Irube to shell out around 1.5 million Tanzanian shillings ($620; £495) to convert his three-wheeled vehicle – known locally as a bajaji – to CNG.
But now, because he needs fuel twice a day, he often spends more time waiting at a gas station in the largest city of Dar es Salaam than he does earning.
There are only four places in the commercial center of Tanzania where he can refuel.
Quietly frustrated, he says he has to wait at least three hours every time he wants to refuel, but the savings make it worth it as he only spends 40% of what he would spend on an equivalent amount of petrol.
A slow line of vehicles at the Ubungo CNG station winds its way down the road. Things are fine – there are three clear lines, one for cars and two for Bajaj – but the irritation is palpable.
Medadi Kichungo Ngoma, in line for two hours, stares at the vehicles ahead as he waits by his silver pick-up truck.
He tells the BBC he was among the first people in the city to convert his vehicle, which involved installing a large cylinder in the back of a pick-up, and recalls the short queues.
“Sometimes we should call a server to serve us,” he says.
He complains that the infrastructure has not expanded to meet the increasing demand.
This is also the refrain heard at the city’s largest CNG filling station near the airport.
Sadiki Christian Mkumbuka waited here for three hours with his bajaji.
“The queue is very long”, he says and adds that “there should be as many stations as there are petrol vehicles”.
But the price consideration will keep people coming back.
“I pay 15,000 shillings ($6; £5) to fill up my 11kg fuel tank, which goes for about 180km,” said another driver, who identified himself as Juma, adding that it was less than half the price of petrol to travel the same distance .
Encouraging drivers to adopt CNG vehicles in Tanzania was launched more than a decade ago, but did not begin in earnest until 2018.
The project managers admit that they did not foresee the rapid increase in demand.
Aristides Kato, head of the CNG project at the state-owned oil company, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), tells the BBC that recently “there has been a very drastic 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.
Authorities, however, want more people to switch to CNG because it is a relatively clean-burning fossil fuel that results in lower emissions of almost all types of air pollutants, according to the UN.
Additionally, locally available natural gas should allow for lower prices than gasoline. But the cost of modifying the vehicle plus the lower mileage that a full tank gives the driver compared to petrol or diesel may turn some people off.
However, the country manager of Taqa Arabia, the Egyptian company that operates the filling station near the airport, sees the growing demand as “a positive sign that the use of CNG has started to develop in Tanzania”.
Amr Aboushady says his company plans to build more stations and hopes to “replicate our success story in Egypt by helping [Tanzanian] The government makes 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.
Authorities in Tanzania are committed to developing additional infrastructure and hope to encourage more private investors to get involved.
TPDC is building a central CNG “mother station” in Dar es Salaam, which will supply gas to smaller stations across the country.
In addition, TPDC is procuring five mobile CNG units to be located in Dar es Salaam, as well as in the capital Dodoma and Morogoro.
These measures should lead to shorter queues in the medium term, but for now the lack of gas stations will continue to frustrate Tanzania’s CNG pioneers.
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