The Mozambican Fuel Importing Agency (Imopetro) is planning to make imports of petroleum products more frequently, but with smaller amounts of fuel, according to a report in last week’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.
Usually, Imopetro imports fuel every six months, but now it intends to import every three months. In the first half of this year, it imported 1.19 million tonnes of fuel. This amount covers the period to the end of July.
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But Imopetro has invited eligible companies to submit bids for the supply of only 575,000 tonnes, less than half the fuel imports for the first half of the year.
The Imopetro General Manager, Joao Macanja, told the paper his institution had decided to downsize the amount of fuel imported, and reduce the intervals between imports to minimize the costs arising from the greater demand for fuel on the international market, which he blamed on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Imopetro was making these changes because “the next import will happen at a time when petroleum products are becoming more expensive and the price of transport has also risen drastically”, said Macanja. “We want to minimize costs in this period, because there are signs that the prices may fall at the end of the year”.
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Imopetro announced this decision at a time when the fuel distribution companies are complaining that they are running at a loss because of the government’s failure to increase fuel prices regularly. The Mozambican state already has a debt to the companies of about 140 million dollars.
