Maintenance problems at country's only refinery take their toll
Zambia seeks solutions to fuel crisis threatening copper mines
October 3, 2005
Lusaka - The Zambian government said yesterday it was trying to resolve a fuel crisis that had disrupted public transport and left petrol stations dry.
Petrol supplies across Zambia have dropped drastically over the past five days after Zambia's only refinery in Ndola, about 400km north of Lusaka, ran into problems during maintenance and had to remain shut longer than anticipated.
"We are doing everything possible to find a solution to this problem. It is, indeed, a crisis and a lot of people have been inconvenienced," said energy minister George Mpombo.
Mpombo said Indeni was shut after a compressor broke down at the plant.
"The compressor failure caused Indeni to have difficulties in removing sulphur from the system. We have ordered 1 million litres of naphtha, a chemical that is used to remove sulphur, from Kenya but it will only arrive next Friday," Mpombo said.
Oil industry analysts said Indeni was a strategic industry and its constant closures would affect economic growth due to low production in factories.
Mpombo said Indeni - which supplies diesel and petrol to copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and also to Zimbabwe - required massive rehabilitation as most of its equipment was obsolete.
Motorists have been queueing at service stations, with some sleeping in their cars, awaiting fuel.
Many bus operators have also been forced to halt their services.
"Trucks will start roaring in tomorrow [Saturday] from South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique carrying diesel and petrol for mainly the copper mines, agriculture and industry," Mpombo said.
Konkola Copper Mines, Zambia's biggest copper producer, might shut down operations because of a shortage of fuel, the state-owned Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation reported yesterday, citing company spokesperson Emmanuel Mutati.
As of Friday, the miner had just two days of fuel supplies left, Mutati said, according to the Lusaka-based broadcaster. India's Vedanta Resources owns 71.6 percent of Konkola.
-From Reuters, SAPA-AFP and Bloomberg
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