Illegal petrol speculation leads to shortage

Stiffer penalties should be imposed on filling stations to prevent speculation at petrol retailers around the country, according to industry experts.

Vuong Thai Dung, deputy general director of the Viet Nam National Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex), said Government regulations required that petrol retailers be supervised by their wholesalers to create a more transparent petrol manufacturing chain.

Many petrol stations suspended sales waiting for anticipated higher prices, a practice that is against the law, Dung told Dau Tu newspaper.

Petrolimex has more than 6,000 gas stations. When there was a shortage of petrol in March, the company’s retail stations did not have enough fuel for customers.

The trading volume at the stations was even higher than normal because the stations of other petrol wholesalers had stopped selling their products, a Petrolimex representative explained.

“We could not determine which stations (that had stopped selling) were linked to particular wholesalers. That responsibility belongs to authorities,” Dung said, adding that it was not very difficult to discover the fuel shortage at a petrol station and then trace the responsibility of the wholesaler.

The country has around 14,000 petrol stations, enough to satisfy consumption demand for the country.

Early this month, many petrol stations in the Mekong Delta and southeastern region either closed or sold petrol only periodically.

The situation has become more serious as it has expanded to other regions, according to Industry and Trade newspaper.

The speculation has created a serious shortfall of fuel for daily use and production in some rural areas.

Farmers in An Giang Province’s Phu Tan District had to leave their combine harvesters and pumps idle or buy fuel at higher prices at 25,000 dong to 30,000 dong a litre from stations.

This also occurred in Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, Binh Phuoc and other provinces, even though market watch officers imposed penalties on the speculators. The situation has improved in northern provinces.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Market Control Department has announced that it will impose a heavy penalty on gas stations speculating in fuel.

The department has set up a hotline to receive complaints from customers.  -VNS

Posted by VBN on May 26 2011. Filed under Oil-Gas & Petroleum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry