My brother-in-law, operating a small petrol stn with kenol kobil is nearly bankrupt. I don't know wht the deal is coz he had to abandon the business. maybe selling fuel is like selling cement, it is stocked only to attract customers to other products on offer.

In some countries which I have visited its not easy to locate petrol stations they are very few and very far away, the reasoning being returns are low from stations compared to real estate on the same land.
And I can see the trend coming to Kenya, in the near future it will be very difficult to find petrol stations in the city centre and up market areas.

Wow! Interesting insights. I always thought petrol stations were cash cows!

See Legal Notice No 196 of 2010 [aka Pricing Formula]

The margin is Sh3.00 per litre. It is not a percentage.

But this is a high volume business. Dealers can easily sell a few thousand litres per day. And with the electronic pumps, wastage at the station is minimal. HOWEVER, theft between depot and station can easily cripple you. You order 10,000L and the truck drive siphons 500L and you are cooked!

Secondly, because of the slim margin, you cannot rely on external financing - the interest rates will eat you alive.

All in All, you need to be very careful about managing stock levels [don't over stock] and the structure of your working capital [don't use borrowed funds]. But with the strained supply chain [there is a permanent shortage of product meaning that you need to allow for long supply lead-times] the challenge is keeping profitable is quite high.

Kwa ufupi; hii sio biashara ya mchezo.

shock on me too!