Triton has a long history of close ties with powerful figures

A photograph of these dignitaries posing with Devani appeared prominently in the newspapers. In May 2006, he confounded friend and foe when he bid to purchase the local assets of the multinational British Petroleum.

BP Africa had announced that its shares in Shell BP — a joint venture with Dutch company Shell —was on sale. BP Africa was about to seal the deal with Triton when Shell exercised its pre-emptive rights and matched the $50 million offer by Triton.

Pundits pointed to Triton’s influence in government when the latter suddenly moved to block the deal ostensibly on the grounds of a breach of anti-trust laws.

The UK finance company Glencore has had a long relationship with Triton. Indeed, there was a time when oil companies believed that Triton was merely importing oil into Kenya on behalf of Glencore.

In early 2006, a major controversy erupted when oil majors accused Triton and Glencore of hoarding ullage space in KPC’s storage tanks at the expense of others — breaching the rule that says that ullage must be allocated according to market share.

Industry players alleged that Triton was using political muscle to influence Kenya Pipeline to give it preferential treatment in the allocation of storage space to store products for speculation.

During the regime of President Daniel arap Moi, Triton several times clinched the lucrative contract to supply petroleum products to the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.