The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Panic buying, surging demand blamed for fuel shortage

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 03, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Panic buying, surging demand blamed for fuel shortage

Staff Reporter

PSUs impose premium petrol and diesel on users

PSUs sell 3.6 crore litres of petrol and 4.75 crore litres of diesel a month in the city
Demand for fuel shot up on Tuesday as motorists tanked up because of transport strike

BANGALORE: Even as motorists continued to buy premium fuel by compulsion in the city on Wednesday, oil marketing companies blamed panic buying on the eve of truckers’ strike and the surging demand for scarcity of fuel.

Many petroleum outlets attached to public sector oil companies continued to offer only premium petrol and diesel while informing consumers that they did not receive regular petrol and diesel from the oil companies. Oil companies said they wanted to popularise branded fuel in metropolitan cities to reduce their losses and to offer quality product to consumers.

Increased demand

A senior Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOC) official told The Hindu that the demand for petrol went up by 5.3 per cent in June and diesel by 13 per cent when compared with June 2007 for IOC and by 8 per cent and 23 per cent for Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL).

He said that IOC was yet to get the figures from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd., (BPCL). IOCL is the coordinating company for oil PSUs in Karnataka.

PSU oil companies sell nearly 3.6 crore litres of petrol and 4.75 crore litres of diesel a month in Bangalore. The official said the demand for fuel shot up on Tuesday as motorists tanked up in panic because of transport strike. Transportation of petrol was exempted from the strike but consumers did not know it.

Oil companies could not import crude in tandem with the growing demand as their kitties had shrunk.

If the demand went beyond 15 per cent with domestic crude, they would be helpless, the official said.

The companies were capable of meeting the demand for now, he added.

As people found heavily subsidised diesel cheaper, consumers using naphtha, petrol and other fuel had switched over to diesel, he said.

Bangalore Petroleum Dealers’ Association president Bhushan Narang told The Hindu that the scenario was not confined to Bangalore or Karnataka alone.

“It is (the situation) all over the country,” he said and added that the outlets were not getting adequate supply from companies. He said the demand for fuel had increased by 30 per cent when compared to last year.

Premium fuel

As petrol pumps did not have enough stocks of regular fuel, consumers were forced to buy premium fuel paying Rs. 4 and Rs. 2.25 for petrol and diesel respectively.

A HPCL outlet on Kasturba Road had only premium petrol in the morning while it received regular fuel in the evening.

Another HPCL outlet on Raj Bhavan Road had only premium petrol.

However, a BPCL outlet on Mahatma Gandhi Road had only regular petrol and had sold nearly 5,000 litres since Wednesday morning. It had only 7,000 litres stock by evening.

While an IOCL outlet on St. Mark’s Road went out of stock of regular petrol in the evening for sometime, it soon received the stock.

Dry

A BPCL outlet near South End Circle in South Bangalore became completely dry by 3.30 p.m.

The people complained that no outlets had fuel in the vicinity except a BPCL station near Lal Bagh West Gate.

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