Boko Haram causes fuel shortage

Most gas stations in Yaounde were short of fuel last week

But petroleum sector officials say there is no cause for alarm
By Ayukogem Steven Ojong in Yaounde
The mild scarcity of fuel that hit Yaounde and some other towns in the country including particularly Garoua, Maroua and Bafoussam last week was due to the recent war launched by President Biya against Boko Haram, this we can say with certainty.
    Though the temporal shortage at many gas stations in these towns was said to be due to a technical break at the lone petroleum refinery in the country, SONARA, which halted operations for 2 weeks to clean up and overhaul its equipment, it turned out that the immediate cause of the shortage was the huge stocks of fuel that was ferried to the Northern parts of the country, to furnish the motorized units of the several thousand troops that were recently marched onto the Northern frontiers with Nigeria to check the Boko Haram menace. This was our take home message, when we went out investigating with some stakeholder companies concerned with the supply of petroleum and petroleum products in the country.

    Even though authorities of SONARA later admitted responsibility for the shortage by announcing that it was due to a technical break at the company, it emerged that SONARA was not directly and immediately responsible.
    “The refinery is usually given a technical break during which period refining operation are temporally halted, to allow for the equipment to be cleaned up and overhauled,” said a source at the SONARA, who opted not to be named in our report.
    Our source said that before the technical break, all necessary measures were taken to make sure that there was no shortage of fuel in the country throughout the 2 weeks of the break.
    “Before the technical break we made sure that the petroleum storage company, SCDP had enough stocks of fuel that could keep the country going for at least a period of one month. Then we also reverted to importation to guarantee regular and uninterrupted supply”, said the source, who however corroborated that “the ship carrying over 10.000 cubic meters of imported petroleum and heading for Limbe, did not arrive when it was expected to arrive…… And because the bulk of the stocks at SCDP had been diverted to supply the needs of the army involved in the war on Boko Haram in the North, an acute shortage was the unfortunate and unexpected outcome.”
    But our source however, sounded a reassuring note, when he said that the shortage of fuel would not last for more than another couple of days. In fact, we were told that the shortage would be made good before Monday 9 June 2014, especially as the ship that was bearing the imported fuel was expected to duck at the Limbe Coast, on Saturday 7 June 2014 at the latest.
    We could not however confirm whether or not the ship actually arrived on Saturday as expected. All our efforts to reach our sources before press time proved futile.