Shell gives up Entebbe aviation fuel depot

Following growing pressure from the aviation fraternity, constant complaints over the lack of AVGAS on the Ugandan market, and bitter comments in the local media aimed against Shell, the oil giant has ceded their interest in the Entebbe aviation fuel depot to TOTAL, signaling the beginning of the end of their engagement in Uganda.

“Nothing is well at Shell” was the comment of one aviator from Kajjansi, who has suffered constant supply problems for AVGAS in recent months and accused Shell’s Ugandan management of “indifference and arrogance” when dealing with complaints and demands to restore fuel stocks. Shell has also failed to live up to repeated verbal commitments made to the aviation fraternity to actually commission an AVGAS facility at the Kajjansi airfield outside Kampala, also prompting those affected by this failure to call for governmental intervention and a swift change of guard, so that a new fuel company can then resume AVGAS and related supplies.

Only recently did news emerge that Shell was to withdraw altogether from the retail fuel business in East Africa and across 21 countries of the continent.

It was also no surprise that Shell’s comments about the Entebbe development were feeble and hardly credible and were swiftly dismissed by aviation observers as irrelevant.