Page 10 - AfrOil Week 12 2020

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil
Fuel shortages persist in Sudan
MANY cities and towns in Sudan have contin- ued to report fuel shortages, despite the gov- ernment’s efforts to improve supply conditions, according to Radio Dabanga.
Motor fuel shortages are said to be wide- spread in Sennar State. Khojali Bashir, a prom- inent member of the Sennar arm of the Forces for Freedom and Change movement, told the radio station last week that demand had far out- stripped supply.
“Though Sennar received its share of fuel the past two days, we still have to line up in front of fuel stations to buy a bit of petrol,” he remarked. “We all wonder where the fuel has gone.”
Likewise, sources in El Tadamon, a town that straddles the border between Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, told Radio Dabanga that gasoline and diesel were nearly impossible to find locally. Some blamed the shortfalls on state security forces, accusing them of hoarding fuel for their own use.
“The regular forces buy most of the fuel rations that reach the town and store it in bar- rels,” said one source. “This exacerbates the fuel crisis to a large extent.”
There were also reports of corruption in Red Sea State. A source in Port Sudan, the capital of the state, said that black market dealers and smugglers were buying gasoline and diesel at the official subsidised prices of SDP104 ($1.88) per gallon and SDP20 ($0.36) per gallon from retail filling stations and then re-selling them for SDP1,280 ($23.13) per gallon and SDP320 ($5.78) per gallon respectively.
“The high demand caused by the shortages and the low fuel prices at the fuel stations lead to corruption,” the source said. “Moreover, gold miners in the area are consuming large quanti- ties of fuel.”
Other sources in Port Sudan alleged that the central government did not have enough con- trol over the area to enforce laws governing the fuel trade.
POLICY
African Energy Chamber urges
tax breaks for oilfield service providers
Complaints of fraud and corruption led Major-General El Rabee Abdallah, the acting governor of West Darfur State, to take action. Radio Dabanga reported that the governor had issued orders restricting the sale of gasoline and diesel to retail filling stations and pledged to impose fines of SDP100,000 ($1,806.68) on violators.
Meanwhile, transportation providers in Khartoum have become reluctant to continue providing bus services to destinations outside the capital, owing to concerns about their abil- ity to secure enough fuel for the return trip. As a result, they have also doubled their ticket prices.
According to previous reports, fuel shortages became acute in Sudan earlier this year, owing to a blockage in the pipeline that pumps crude oil from fields in Kordofan State to the Khartoum oil refinery. The country’s transitional govern- ment did manage to identify the problem, but initially it did not divulge much information about its plans to restore the pipe’s function and resume deliveries to the refinery.
Last month, though, the Ministry of Energy and Mining took a more active approach towards repairs. Since then, supply conditions have improved somewhat in the capital. ™
Drivers must queue up outside some filling stations (Photo: Radio Dabanga)
REGIONAL
AFRICAN oilfield service operators deserve support from the governments of African oil and gas-producing states, a Johannesburg-based industry association has argued.
Last week, the African Energy Chamber (AEC) noted that local service providers would
be hard hit by falling prices on world oil markets
and the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. 
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 12 25•March•2020