Maputo — The Mozambican fuel import company, Imopetro, has guaranteed that the import of liquid fuels is continuing normally, and no interruption in stocks is forecast in the short term.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Friday, the Imopetro Director of Operations, Abiba Amade, claimed that the current level of stocks of petroleum products puts Mozambique in a comfortable situation, despite the oscillation in fuel prices on the world market.

Amade said Imopetro began the week with enough stocks of petrol to last 29 days, enough diesel for 19 days, and enough cooking gas for 16 days. She guaranteed that tankers carrying fuel are continuing to arrive at the country's ports.

"Right now we have three ships in Maputo", said Amade. "One has already unloaded. It finished unloading yesterday (Thursday), and now we are unloading the ship with gas in Maputo. We have two more that are waiting to unload petrol, jet fuel and diesel".

She added that in the central port city of Beira two more ships are waiting to dock and begin unloading fuel. In the northern port of Nacala, a ship has just arrived carrying jet fuel, while in Pemba a ship carrying petrol and diesel finished unloading in Friday.

Imopetro imports petroleum products monthly, said Amade, and ensures that the market is regularly supplied. She added that Imopetro is in permanent contact with the suppliers.

"Imports are continuing at normal levels", she said. "We have the order for June confirmed. We placed the order for June at the end of April. The supplier has confirmed that we have two windows for supply, one from 12 to 16 June, and the other from 26 to 30 June. Import levels remain the same, the orders remain at the level of 197,000 to 200,000 tonnes of fuel a month".

Imopetro is owned by all the fuel distributors authorized to operate in Mozambique and is the exclusive agent for the import of liquid and gaseous fuels.