3 November 2009
THE fuel situation in the country will fully normalise this weekend once Indeni Oil Refinery resumes operations, Chief Government spokesperson Ronnie Shikapwasha has said.
And Lieutenant General shikapwasha said the statement by the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) had created uncertainty about the price of fuel and had led to panic buying by motorists and hoarding of the commodity by some dealers.
He said the situation would, however, ease before the weekend following the improvement in the inflow of fuel on the market, which would be boosted by current Government stocks.
Gen Shikapwasha said during a Press briefing in Lusaka yesterday that Indeni was expected to restart operations this weekend, following the completion of the works by Friday.
He said as of yesterday, there were 1,040,000 litres of petrol and 896,000 litres of diesel at Tazama in Ndola, which were earmarked for distribution by oil marketing companies (OMCs) countrywide.
Additionally, 19 trucks were awaiting offloading with a total of 665,000 litres of petrol bringing the total stock position of petrol to 1,705,000 litres. From that amount, 800,000 litres would be given to the OMCs.
From the 896,000 litres of diesel, which were at Tazama yesterday, 600,000 litres would be supplied to OMCs for the Copperbelt consumers while the balance would cater for Central, Luapula, North-Western and Northern provinces.
For Lusaka, two tankers carrying 70,000 litres of the commodity were given to Total for distribution and additionally, 17 diesel tankers arrived at Chirundu Border carrying 595,000 litres, giving a total of 665,000 litres of diesel supplied to the capital city by the Government.
He said other tankers expected at Chirundu would supply diesel to Eastern and Western provinces.
The daily national consumption is about 700,000 litres for petrol and about one million litres for diesel.
He said the Government and Total were still negotiating over the takeover of the French company's 50 per cent stake in Indeni refinery.
The Government was equally examining the operations of the ERB following the issuance of two conflicting statements on the prices of petroleum products in the country last week.
He said the Government also suspected that some filling stations may be hoarding fuel in anticipation of price increases following the conflicting statements made by the ERB.
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