Importadora Moçambicana de Petróleos (IMOPETRO) recently announced that it is looking for a new company to supply and transport 575,000 metric tons of refined petroleum products to the country.
Contracts to supply the fuel used to last for six months, but the head of the IMOPETRO Market Department, Miceles Miambo told Portuguese daily newspaper Diário Económico on Friday, 20 January, that in May of last year the institution had changed its “modus operandi” regarding contracting fuel suppliers, reducing the duration of contracts to three months.
“Previously we used to do six-month contracts. So we had two contracts a year, depending on what the consumption of the contracted quantities would be. At the moment, we have reduced the period to three months, in order to follow what has been happening on the international market, or rather, we are launching the tender with a shorter period because that allows us to have the freight closer to the market price that is being practised at the moment, as well as having tenders with more competitive prices,” Miceles Miambo explained.
Miambo also took the opportunity to clear up the controversy surrounding the fuel crisis in the north of the country at the end of last year. “We didn’t have a shortage of product, as many people think, especially as we had a ship in the port available to unload, or in other words, the tanks had fuel to fill up. What happened was that we had logistical problems,” he said.
Miambo also explained that the launch of the tender for the new fuel supplier “has no connection to the crisis,” because, he said, “we have a contract that is in place. IMOPETRO always launches its tenders for a new supplier before the end of the current contract, on average about two months, or rather, we control the quantities that the supplier discharges and when we see that we are close to 60% of the contractual quantities carried out, we prepare the launch of a new tender,” he said.
Questioned about the possibility of this new contract helping to avoid pressure from rising fuel prices, Miambo noted that “it’s not through tenders that we’re going to determine price pressure because what determines it are market conditions.
The products to be imported by the future new supplier comprise 150,000 tonnes of petrol, 400,000 tonnes of diesel and 25,000 tonnes of gas. “All of these refined oil products should be unloaded at the ports of Maputo, Beira, Nacala and Pemba,” he added.
The source also gave assurances that the tender would be governed by procedures relating to international public tenders, similar to those specified in World Bank guidelines, and that it was open to all bidders from eligible countries.