Interpetrol was founded in the early 1990s by Taruk Bashir, a businessman born in Burundi to an Indo-Pakistani family who had dual Burundian and Tanzanian citizenship.

[6] Through his relationship with Pierre Nkurunziza, President of Tanzania until 2020, Taruk Bashir managed to obtain a quasi-monopoly in oil distribution in Burundi.

[1] In August 2007 Isaac Bizimana, Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Burundi, was arrested for embezzlement and jailed in Bujumbura Central Prison.

[10] A 2011 report by the U.S. State Department said that judges had been pressured to drop corruption charges against Munir and Tariq Bashir, owners of Interpetrol, by senior government officials.

[11] When Pierre Nkurunziza ran in 2015 for a third term as president of Burundi, donors cut aid payments, the economy shrank and there was a shortage of dollars needed pay for fuel imports.

[13] However, these companies did not have trading connections, transport vehicles or storage facilities, so the result was severe shortages of fuel and soaring prices.

Others said the problem was a lack of foreign currency due to an extreme trade imbalance where Burundi goods worth more than five times their exports.

[13] Presidential decree 100/034 of 20 February 2024 created the Société Pétroliere du Burundi (SOPEBU) a publicly owned company, under the Ministry of Energy.

[18] In April 2018 the Director General of Interpetrol Burundi threatened to suspend production, since Regideso had failed to make payments on schedule.