By Mubunga Mubanga
Energy Regulations Board (ERB) director general Elijah Sichone says the country has fuel stocks to last for about seven days.
Addressing the media together with oil marketing companies (OMCs) in Lusaka yesterday, Sichone said the country had sufficiency in terms of petrol and diesel.
“So let’s look at diesel, and again l will stick to the two main ones, being diesel and petrol. If we look at the diesel the country has, we will talk to you now based on the information that we have gathered as of 08:00 hrs this morning. We have got a total of about 30. 4 million liters of diesel. That is a total stock we have at all these facilities that l had mentioned in my introductory remarks,” Sichone said. “And if you look at daily consumption right now, we estimate that for diesel on a daily basis we consume in the order of 4.2 million liters a day. So clearly if you compare the 30.4 million liters vs the daily consumption of 4.2 million per day, l would get a sense that indeed in terms of sufficiency that is definitely the case.”
Sichone added that ERB had conducted a survey on 606 out of a total of 621 filling stations in the country, showing 78.5 percent were selling both diesel and petrol, while 16.2 percent were just selling diesel, with 15 percent just selling petrol, while 17 percent did not have both diesel and petrol.
“Out of these 606 retail sites we had 476 sites selling both products. In other words they are selling diesel, and also selling petrol. When you go to these filling stations that constitute a total of 78.5 percent they are selling both products,” Sichone said. “But we have challenges, in the sense that there are some filling stations that basically are not selling both products. We have 98 that were just selling diesel only, meaning that they do not have petrol. That is 98, basically 16.2 percent.”
However, Sichone was quick to point out that the seven days worth of fuel stock, did not mean that after seven days, the commodity would run out as the fuel supply chain was a continuous process.
“We have diesel being pumped in the country through TAZAMA. We have part of the diesel coming through by road, and for petrol on a daily basis,” Sichone said.
Mount Meru managing director Dharmes Patel said the challenge the country was having in terms of fuel supply was attributed to a change in policy by the Zimbabwean government, which had limited the use of its tankers.
Patel added that Zimbabwe had the highest numbers of tankers which were supplying fuel to Zambia.
“To start with we have two particular sources of fuel, one is Dar es Salam, one is Beira. In Beira l think last month we saw some disturbances. The pot was not functional. So there were some challenges with fuel coming in,” said Patel. “In terms of other challenges we have got Policy directive that have affected the fleet, not all OMCs currently are facing challenges in terms of logistics … It is a policy directive from Zimbabwe that has limited the use of the Zimbabwean tankers.”
