Petroleum retailers say they are hard hit by the acute petrol scarcity, now in its third week, which has reduced their operating capacity to 30 percent.
Industry players The Nation talked to yesterday said most service stations, both in rural and urban centres , are barely operational as in recent months they have only been receiving fuel once a week on average.
In an interview yesterday, Petroleum Retailers Association of Malawi chairperson Happy Jere said suppliers are mostly delivering fuel in the cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu, leaving service stations in districts and other towns, including Zomba City, virtually dry.
Station in Blantyre
“Filling stations in cities are only selling about 30 percent of normal fuel amount, but those outside the cities are mostly idle yet they still have to pay bills,” he said.
Jere said the association represents 140 petroleum retail business operators.
TotalEnergies Malawi Limited Kanjedza Service Station operator Stain Singo, in a separate interview yesterday, said the retailers’ earnings are dependent on the volume of fuel sold monthly as such the crisis has drastically reduced their turnover.
He expressed fear that filling station owners would not be able to cover fixed costs such as staff salaries, rentals and utility bills.
“For example at our filling station, we have only received fuel once over the past week. Normally, we get 18 000 litres of petrol per delivery, but this time we only received about 9000 litres which lasted a day,” said Singo.
The Nation spot-checks in Mchinji, Lilongwe, Zomba, Mangochi, Mwanza and Blantyre found that the situation had not improved as long queues of motor vehicles and motorcycles at filling stations expected to take deliveries were still visible
yesterday. The long queues are also inconveniencing other road users due to traffic congestion, especially where service stations are taking delivery of petrol.
On the other hand, commuters are digging deeper into their pockets as public transport operators have increased fares on various routes nationwide.
The public transport providers have responded to the crisis by increasing commuter fares to recoup losses incurred through long hours of waiting for fuel at stations and, in some cases, surviving on fuel bought from the black market at more than double the official prices.
In Blantyre, the fare on the Limbe-Blantyre route has doubled from K1 000 to K500.
Minibus Owners Association to normalise during the weekend as 5.5 million litres of petrol was being loaded in trucks at ports in Mozambique and Tanzania while 1.1 million litres of petrol was on the way.
He further stated that government has allocated $21.5 million (about K37.6 billion) to fuel importers to pay suppliers and authorise the loading of 26.9 million litres of fuel to mitigate the on-going crisis.
A petroleum industry source confided in The Nation that with Nocma strategic reserves as well as oil marketing companies’ storage facilities depleted, the country faces a tall order to stabilise supply and availability.
“We are in a hand-to-mouth situation. The one or four million litres can be delivered today, but it is going straight to the filling stations and consumers’ vehicles. Not easy to build reserves we need to stabilise the situation,” said the source.
The source added that the situation was a fertile breeding ground for speculation and panic.
Malawi is facing acute fuel shortages due to scarcity of foreign exchange whose reserves are estimated at an equivalent of one month of import cover
Coaxley Kamange said in an interview that the operators have no choice considering that they are incurring extra costs by spending hours on end at service stations or buying fuel at over K6 000 per litre on the parallel markets. of Malawi secretary general
“We are as king government to ensure that fuel is available all year round,” he said.
Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) consumer affairs and public relations manager Fitina Khonje and National Oil Company of Malawi (Nocma) spokesperson Raymond Likambale yesterday asked for more time before commenting on the fuel crisis.
However, a National Stocks Fuel Report for October compiled by Mera, shows that the crisis had been brewing since October 1 2024, when the country had 4.9 days stock of petrol and 15 days stock of diesel.
As of Tuesday, October 22 2024, stocks in tanks at depots stood at 0.623 million litres of petrol enough for less than a day and 0.438 million litres of diesel, which can also not last a day.
In terms of deliveries, 511 500 litres of petrol and 142 400 litres of diesel were delivered on October 22 2024 against a requirement of one million litres per day for each product.
Last Wednesday, Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu, speaking during a press briefing he jointly addressed with Mera chief executive officer Henry Kachaje and Nocma CEO Clement Kanyama, said fuel supply was expected
