"We envisage that demand for petroleum products will increase further in the near future because of the increased economic activities in our neighbouring countries which have an average growth of 5.8%, KPC managing director George Okungu said in Nairobi. He said the East African nation would build a new oil extension pipeline to act as an alternative to the Sudanese oil pipeline, while extending its current reach to Kigali in Rwanda, and a separate line to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Uganda. Mr Okungu said the company has witnessed an unprecedented growth in its commercial operations due to the "skyrocketing demand" for petroleum products in the region. KPC, a state-owned oil pipeline monopoly with the sole mandate to transport white-oil products exports refined oil products to 11 countries in the Great Lakes region, but its inability to pump more fuel from Mombasa, where the country's single crude oil refinery is based and from where road transporters take it further inland into the region, has been constrained. KPC has recorded a 300% rise in its pumping capacity, increasing from 880,000 cum/yr to 3.5m cum/yr in 2005, due to the economic growth generated from the return to peace in Burundi and the relative calm in the DRC. As part of the company's expansion plans KPC will also construct a 1020-km long crude oil pipeline from Kapoeta in Southern Sudan to its proposed free port of Lamu. Currently, Kenya imports all the oil products consumed in the country from the Middle East, and efforts to import oil from Sudan have proved fruitless because of its inability to refine the heavy crude oil from the Southern Sudan oilfields.