Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh, as also other states, is heading for a shortage of both petrol and diesel as the oil marketing companies trim their supplies to petroleum traders.
OMC are trying to offset their loss following the rise in US dollar value to purchase the recently jacked up price of crude oil in the context of the US-Iran war.
Oil traders say that among all the three OMCs, the BPCL and HPCL are not releasing supplies of petrol and diesel as per requirement. Some 40 per cent of the requirement is being met.
Moreover, the OMCs are now allowing bulk sale of fuels for industries, aquaculture and others and they are even cancelling the indents for the fuels abruptly at about 2 or 3pm — a time when the traders are expecting delivery. They are not citing the reasons for disruption in supply. This causes more concern to the traders. They fear that the existing stock of fuels may be exhausted and their fuel bunks may have to be closed temporarily.
Notably, there would be holidays for three days from March 27 to 29, with banks remaining closed. Traders are worried that with no chance for making payment, they may not get fuel supply and motorists too would have a hard time ahead.
The traders sought intervention from the state government. They proposed a meeting with the OMCs and other stakeholders to ensure regular supply of fuels to fuel stations, and by extension to motorists.
General secretary of the AP federation of petroleum traders, P Ravi Kumar, said, “If the government does not intervene, we may face a shortage of fuels and several fuel bunks would go dry. This could even lead to law and order problems at fuel bunks.”
Meanwhile, OMCs BPCL, HPCL and IOCL said in a joint statement on Wednesday that there is no shortage of fuels and that they are having adequate stocks. “There is some panic buying in some fuel bunks, and hence the shortage at the bunks.”
They advised the people not to purchase additional fuel to stock them and not to collect fuels in plastic bottles and containers. This would be more dangerous. Efforts are on to increase production of fuels, they said.
General manager of AP Oil Industry N Bhaskar Reddy said, “We have imposed curbs on bulk sale of fuels for industries. There is a price variation due to the rise in the cost of crude oil per barrel, but there’s no rise in the price of fuels being used by the people.”
“We are closely monitoring the situation to ensure there’s no shortage of fuels for supply to the motorists in AP. If some fuel bunks are getting dry, it may be due to non-payment for purchase of fuels by some dealers,” he reasoned.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
