Faced with the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and North African countries, Zambia plans to start stockpiling crude oil in strategic reserves to avert shortages cut costs and meet demand in the Southern African nation.
Mr Kenneth Konga energy minister of Zambia told lawmakers that a deliberate policy has been reached by government to avert soaring prices in the price of crude oil that might be spurred by the ongoing crisis in affected countries. The government will stock up fuel reserves as a way to averting a possible fuel crisis following the political turmoil in the Middle East and in Libya.
Zambia was watching closely the political developments in the Middle East as well as Libya because they posed a great threat to the security of supply of petroleum products to Zambia which is vulnerable price increases.
Mr Konga was responding to questions from lawmakers who wanted to know whether the situation in Libya was of great concern to Zambia and the international community. He explained that because of the measures the Government was to undertake, the crisis obtaining in the petroleum supplying countries would not impact negatively on the prices as well as the supply of the commodity.
Some lawmakers further sought to know whether fuel prices would not rise owing to the problems in the Middle East and Libya. Zambia, like many African countries, relying of crude oil supplies from Middle East has had effects on the pricing of the fuel in country as evidenced last January when the country was prompted to raise fuel pump prices by 20%when the crisis begun in Middle East.
In recent weeks, crisis has rocked several countries in the Middle East including Libya that are key in the provision of crude oil to Zambia which it chiefly uses to run the mines and other parts of the economy.
According to data, the Zambian mines, which makes Zambia the leading producer of copper in Africa consume about 50% of the total fuel provided which include heavy oils, diesel and petrol.
Earlier, Mr Konga’s deputy Mr Lubinda Imasiku told lawmakers that Zambia’s daily consumption of diesel was 1.6 million liters per day while that of petrol was 650,000 liters. Zambia used per day, 150,000 liters of Jet-A1 fuel and 50,000 liters of Kerosene.
Mr Imasiku said that the 1.6 million liters of diesel cost about ZMK 11.4 billion while 650,000 liters of petrol cost ZMK 8.4 billion with Jet A1 fuel fetching ZMK 554 million at wholesale price as at February 2011. 50,000 liters of Kerosene gobbles ZMK 250 million per day.
(Filed by Mr Kapembwa Sinkamba SteelGuru Correspondent Zambia)
