Gas stations still unable to supply normal volumes

In the last two days, a gas station in Thanh Xuan Ward in HCMC’s District 12 claimed to completely run out one time and had been rationing sales the rest of the time.

Its employees said supply has been in small quantities at a time.

Many gas stations on national road 1A in District 12 have put up signs saying they are out of fuel and re waiting for tankers to bring stocks.

A number of stations in districts like Go Vap and 7 and Thu Duc City have also put up such signs frequently.

Le Van My, general director of Hoc Mon Trading Joint Stock Company, which owns 11 gas stations and 21 retail agents in the city, said supply is low now.

Each of the gas stations used to be allocated 5,000-10,000 liters a day, but are now getting only 1,000-2,000 liters, and sometimes as low as 700 liters.

Tran Duy Dong, director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s domestic market department, told VnExpress: “This week and next week, key enterprises will receive bigger volumes of imports, making up for the reduced supply by Nghi Son Refinery. In around 10 days, market demand and supply will be balanced”.

Nghi Son has been provided with short-term financing to resume operations, but crude oil has not arrived yet and so it is still operating at 55-60 percent of capacity, he revealed.

On March 15, it will return to full capacity, he said.

It will take major suppliers another 30-45 days to receive imported fuel.

The Dung Quat Oil Refinery has increased its capacity from 103 percent to 105 percent since the Lunar New Year holiday in early February. The ministry wants it to operate at the maximum capacity possible.

By Feb. 1, more than 205,000 cubic meters of imported gasoline and diesel had landed in Vietnamese ports.

More are on the way. Petrolimex will get 180,000 cubic meters this month, PVOil, 66,000 cubic meters and Hong Duc, 80,000 cubic meters.

Though Dong expects supply and demand to be balanced in the next 10 days, distributors expect the shortage to continue because it is still difficult for Vietnamese oil refineries to operate normally when the import of crude oil is slow and there is a global shortage due to the Ukraine crisis.

In the domestic market, not only gas stations but also distributors and importers have suffered severe losses.

My said his company racks up losses of several hundred million dong (VND100 million = $4,300) a day.