Total Kenya has announced losses in the first quarter of 2012 Tuesday.  In a statement , the oil marketer attributed losses to “heavy financing costs caused by high interest rates, volatile global crude prices and local price caps”.

The company, majority-owned by France’s Total, posted an 84.3 million shilling ($1 million) pre-tax loss in the three months to the end of March, compared to a pre-tax profit of 272.8 million shilling ($3.4 million) in the same period last year, Reuters reports.

Total Kenya said its financing cost during the quarter soared to 628 million shillings ($7.6 million) from 153 million ($1.8 million) in the same period last year.

However, the company seeks to counter this by seeking alternative funding to cut the heavy burden caused by high lending rates.

Kenya’s ministry of energy, through the Energy Regulatory Commission, devised a strategy (capping fuel price at a certain level) in move to protect consumers from high fuel prices when it introduced a monthly review of pump prices in December 2010.

Total Kenya anticipated strains in performance for the rest of the year due to erratic international prices of oil and high interest rates in east Africa’s biggest economy.

Total Kenya Limited is part of the TOTAL Group, the 4th largest oil and gas company in the world operating in over 100 countries throughout the world. It is  one of  Kenya’s major oil and gas marketing companies with over one hundred and seventy service stations and a market share of 23.2%.

According to the company’s website, Total Kenya is the only subsidiary of a multinational petroleum company whose shares are quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange.