Fuel costs: Bulk imports saving 501.13bn/- yearly

Erasto Simon, the PBPA chief executive officer, told journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the saved money since the inception of bulk importation in 2012 for petrol, diesel, jet fuel and kerosene was used in improving the country’s petroleum products storage terminals.

“The funds are being used in improving storage facilities across the 22 terminals in all major ports,” he said, noting that the terminals have a capacity of storing 1.31bn liters of petroleum products in total.

At the moment there are 11 storage tanks at Kurasini facility in Dar es Salaam with a storage capacity of 570m liters, he said, pointing at eight tanks at the Kigamboni facility storing 522m liters.

Mtwara port has two tanks storing 35m liters and Tanga port features one storage tank taking 182m liters, he stated, asserting that more storage facilities are needed as importation volumes keep increasing.

This calls for more extensive investment and joint ventures to attain sufficient storage capacity as it evolved, he said.

Bulk importation has contributed to slowing down tax evasion by some oil marketing companies, cutting frauds related to importation costs in the world market, he said.

Leakage during off-loading was similarly controlled, with 1100 metric tons of petroleum products prevented from leakage on a monthly basis, which adds to 4.16bn/- on the basis of current prices, implying 49.9bn/- being saved annually, he stated.

Oil tanker traffic at the ports waiting to off-load was cut down by bulk importation, with 425bn/- being saved on an annual basis from demurrage costs, he said.

Importing in bulk has contributed to the growth of on-transit petroleum products importation to 55 percent of total imports, from 33 percent in 2012, with a shift from 250,000 tons of petroleum products imported for transit to neighbouring countries on a monthly basis, to 650,000 tons this year.

At present, daily consumption of petrol countrywide stands at 5m liters, with 7.1m liters of diesel used daily, 610,000 liters of jet fuel and 47,000 liters of kerosene, he added.

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