Fuel supply improves

Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) has said people should expect the shortage of fuel to ease following the gradual improvement in the flow of supplies into the country.

Mera public relations manager Fitina Khonje said yesterday the authority has been engaging players in the fuel sector to ensure daily supplies.

She said: “All efforts are being taken to ensure the country does not only have enough fuel for our daily consumption, but also has healthy stocks in the reserves.

“Players in the fuel sector remain committed to sustain the flow of fuel supplies amidst the forex supply challenge.”

In a separate interview, Nocma director of operations Micklas Reuben said a delegation is in Maputo, Mozambique in a bid to improve fuel supply in the country.

He said already some fuel stocks arrived in Malawi on Sunday and most fuel service stations should expect further improvement this week.

Reuben said Blantyre, which was the most-affected, received 70 000 litres of both petrol and diesel on Sunday.

He said: “The fuel situation has improved from where it was in the past five days and the situation will stabilise shortly.

“As we are talking now, we are in Maputo [Mozambique] in a bid to try to improve fuel supply in Malawi.”

Last week, Reuben attributed the current fuel shortage to the delays by ships carrying Nocma’s fuel imports at the port of Beira in Mozambique which forced the company to source the product using Dar es Salaam Port in Tanzania to Lilongwe.

However, he said measures to address the situation, including issuing letters of credit was done.

Reuben also said Nocma engaged local banks to secure $15 million and 3.2 million euro for the purchase of fuel.

So far, spot-checks in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba and Mulanje yesterday showed that some fuel service stations ran out of petrol few hours after receiving the commodity on Sunday.

The resurfacing of fuel queues comes barely two months after Malawi Government said it had devised several measures to ensure security of fuel supply, including negotiating to pay suppliers in local currency.

In the past two years, Malawi has been reeling under an acute foreign exchange shortage due to supply and demand imbalances on the domestic foreign exchange market, largely evidenced by low forex supply, declining official foreign exchange reserves and widening spread of rates on the market.

Mera data shows that on average, Malawians use 845 000 litres of petrol and 834 000 litres of diesel in a day.

Petroleum Importers Limited, which imports about 248 million litres of Malawi’s fuel annually, is mandated to bring into the country 50 percent of the country’s fuel requirements while Nocma brings in the remaining half.

Malawi requires $3 billion per year to meet import requirements, but only produces $1 billion, according to Reserve Bank of Malawi data.