Besides the daily burdens Egyptians are enduring these days, such as the recent power outages, their lives are becoming more difficult as a result of the ongoing fuel and diesel shortages. Long queues of cars, trucks and mini-buses have been lining up throughout the week in front of petrol stations across the country in the hope of filling their tanks. Besides the usual shortages of diesel, this week it was octane 92 fuel, commonly used by passenger cars, that had gone missing. Motorists commonly had to visit more than one petrol station or go outside of Cairo to get fuel, and the long lines at the petrol stations played havoc with the traffic. Mohamed Samir, a Cairo resident, said he had visited 10 petrol stations looking for fuel, and he spoke for many when he said that it had taken him more than two hours to fill his tank. One employee at a petrol station in the Cairo neighbourhood of Mohandiseen said that his station had not received less fuel, but that this quantity was “exhausted by the early afternoon due to increased demand”. The shortages have encouraged even people who do not need fuel to fill their tanks in case of shortages later. Shortages have been evident of all types of fuel, as well as diesel, said Hossam Arafat, head of the General Division of Petroleum Products at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce. He said that shortages of diesel and other fuel had amounted to 30 per cent across the country and 25 per cent in Cairo. Arafat attributed the shortages to the lack of liquidity available to the government to import fuel as the current financial year comes to an end. He said that some $200 million had been made available last week for fuel imports, adding that the government would not be able to secure more funds in the remaining days of the current financial year, which ends on 30 June. Torn between fuel shortages and power outages, Arafat said that the government had used the money to import fuel oil, which is used to run power stations, instead of diesel. By doing so, it was trying to avoid the kind of power outages that hit the country two weeks ago. As a result of the government's inability to import more fuel, Arafat said that the market had had to depend on Egypt's local production, which covers from 60 to 70 per cent of consumption, causing shortages. He criticised the government's management of the crisis, saying that the shortages had been expected and that the government should have been prepared to face them. He expected the shortages to ease by the beginning of the new financial year. Meanwhile, an official source at the Ministry of Petroleum was quoted by the daily Al-Ahram as saying that the reason behind the current shortages was a breakdown in one of the units producing octane 80 fuel in Alexandria, which produces around 1,800 tonnes a day, representing 15 per cent of local demand. The breakdown had prompted oil-refining companies to produce more of this fuel to make up for the loss, affecting the production of other types of fuel, the source said. He added that the fuel shortages would end as soon as the unit resumed production. The recurring fuel shortages and the energy issue as a whole have been an uphill challenge facing the government. Rationalising the country's energy subsidies has also become a national priority in the light of the gaping budget deficit that amounted to some LE175.9 billion during the first nine months of the 2012/2013 fiscal year. Petroleum subsidies alone eat up a fifth of the government's spending, having reached some LE120 billion this year and expected to reach LE100 billion in 2013/14. In a bid to redress the energy crisis, the Ministry of Petroleum has embarked on a new smart-card system to distribute subsidised petroleum products. The new system is intended to regulate the distribution of subsidised fuel in a way that will curb smuggling and black-market sales and allow the subsidised fuel to reach its intended targets. Starting this month, the Ministry of Petroleum, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, has started executing the first stage of the smart-card programme. The ministry said in a statement that the first stage would monitor the distribution of petroleum products from fuel depots to petrol stations through an electronic process that will define the exact quantities distributed to each station. This stage will include 61 fuel depots and some 2,870 petrol stations across the nation. The second stage will involve supervising the selling of petroleum products via petrol stations that will be provided with new points of sale, enabling the government to monitor the process electronically. Car owners and others that use petroleum products will receive smart cards so that they can obtain fuel. However, the readiness of the petrol stations for the introduction of the new scheme has been questioned. On a tour of petrol stations in Cairo, Al-Ahram Weekly discovered that points of sale had not been established, but that staff had received training on how to use the smart cards. At first, the cards will only be used to monitor and supervise the distribution of diesel and petrol without placing a cap on the amount of fuel allowed. In the second stage, the ministry established a website on which individuals and others could register. This would help the ministry to complete its database of the real number of fuel consumers.
