BP seeks to replace Lobtrans

Brian Benza
Staff Writer | Friday February 8, 2008 00:00

BP acting general manger Mahube Mpugwa said yesterday that normal fuel supplies will resume soon after Unitrans was appointed by the High Court as their interim distributor last Friday. Unitrans is supposed to start making deliveries this week. Mpugwa said BP lost a significant amount of business due to the folding up of Lobtrans. He told Businessweek that supplies are below normal. Some depots in areas such as Bobonong, Selebi-Phikwe and Francistown ran out of supplies for a few days. 'At the moment, we are using Unitrans which was appointed by the High Court following the placement of Lobtrans under  provisional liquidation. But on a long term basis, we are currently negotiating with many other local and regional companies including Unitrans itself to become our primary and secondary petroleum transporters.

'We have tried as much as possible to give priority to our commercial customers such as the mines. Although supplies to Debswana have decreased, their operations have not been affected as they usually keep a buffer stock of between 15,000-20,000 litres.

'However supplies to Morupule were very low but the situation did not get worse as Morupule is not a huge fuel consumer. It only consumes about 20,000 per week and supplies are on their way there as we speak,' said Mpugwa. BP supplies the BDF with aviation fuel. Mpugwa said supplies to the army was disrupted but the situation is under control though supplies are low.

He added that BP's operations are expected to normalise by next week and the primary focus has been to address supplies to retail sites and key commercial customers. BP Botswana is concentrating on ensuring supplies to Debswana and BCL mines.

'We have also delivered key supplies of Aviation Gasoline (Avgas) and Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), conscious of the importance of these fuels to the economy, particularly the tourism sector in the north western part of the country. Essentially the situation is stabilising in the south and we are now concentrating in the north of the country,' Mpugwa said.

BP Botswana co-operating closely with BP South Africa have put in place contingency plans to maintain country-to-country supply. 'Our fuel depots in Botswana are well stocked at the moment and our service stations are starting to receive normal orders. Unfortunately, some of our sites were affected initially and we apologise for that,' Mpugwa said. BP Botswana has 30  branded service stations in the country and two fuel depots.