2.52% INCREASE IN IMPORTED, SOLD FUEL

MBABANE – A total of 340 063 748 litres of fuel was imported and sold in the financial year 2023-24.

This was a slight increase of 2.52 per cent compared to a total of 331 714 304 Litres, which was imported and sold in the previous financial year. In the 2023/24 financial year, the country’s fuel supply was stable with no major supply interruptions experienced as depicted in the Eswatini Energy Regulatory Authority (ESERA) Annual Report for the financial year 2023-24, which was tabled in Parliament recently. The report stipulates that there were no notable fuel supply challenges at wholesale level, except for a few retail sites that had been without fuel for extended periods due to cash-flow operational challenges.

By the end of the reporting period, the country had 13 licensed wholesalers, five of whom are actively trading, while the remaining are dormant. Out of the five actively trading wholesalers, only three have commercial storage facilities in use. These volumes only account for petrol and diesel but exclude volumes of paraffin sold. Graph 2 below shows the total volumes consumed per month over the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial periods: “To ensure continuity of petroleum product supply, Section 67 of the Petroleum Act requires that wholesalers should keep a minimum of 14-day commercial stocks in locally established fuel storage facilities,” reads the report.

Utilisation

Currently installed commercial storage facilities have a maximum capacity of 3 910 800 litres, which amounts to an average of four-day commercial stock when fully utilised. For the 2023/24 financial year, commercial stocks averaged between one - two days owing mainly to poor utilisation of available capacity as well as inadequate fuel storage facilities in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

The report depicts that the appetite for investing in fuel storage expansion by Wholesalers has been low due to the long pending plans by government to develop strategic storage facilities at Phuzumoya. “Wholesalers had been made aware of the fact that they shall be required to uplift part of their operational stocks from the strategic fuel storage facility and as such making it risky to replicate investment in fuel storage facilities,” reads the report.

Efforts have been made by government to develop an emergency petroleum product supply plan and an operational modality of the strategic fuel reserve facility. The report depicts that this plan seeks to provide direction on the fuel storage requirements and usage of the strategic fuel storage facility to be developed at Phuzumoya. Coupled with the now established plans to commence the construction of the strategic fuel storage facility, it is expected that the imminent security of supply risk will soon be an issue of the past.

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