eBusiness Weekly
Kudakwashe Mhundwa
Government has given the green light to State-Petroleum dealer Petrotrade to start selling some of its products in US dollars. This is part of its measures to ensure that the company is able to procure petroleum products that are sold in hard currency.
This was said by Petrotrade acting operations manager Robson Maradzika on the sidelines of the company’s corporate social responsibility programme at Mukombwe Jiros Jiri School in Mutoko on Tuesday.
Maradzika said the company is currently failing to meet the increasing demand of fuel and thus has come up with strategies to sell some of its product in hard currency as a way of raising money for procuring the product.
“Demand of fuel currently is very high and we are failing to cope because of the shortages that are prevailing in the country mainly to do with the availability of foreign currency to procure the product.
“We are now trying to sell in foreign currency so that maybe we can generate foreign currency to be able to procure the product. We have been given the green light to do so by the ministry at selected service stations.
“We started off with Kamfinsa Service Station but one can purchase fuel at any of our services stations if they wish to do so,” he said.
Demand for fuel in Zimbabwe nearly doubled last year on the back of increased business activity in the country, according to former Minister of Energy and Power development Dr Joram Gumbo.
Recent data showed that Zimbabwe is now consuming about 4 million litres of diesel from 2,5 million litres per day and 3 million litres of petrol from an average of 1,5 million litres per day previously.
Meanwhile, the petroleum dealer also highlighted that they are looking to increase their market share this year by at least 10 percent and marginally increase every year after this by 2 percent.
Maradzika said this process will be aided by construction of more services stations across the country which is an ongoing process at the moment.
“We are doing this on an ongoing basis. Currently we are building about four services stations, one in Mabvuku, Warren Park, Masvingo and Bindura. Then we have got others that are at the environmental impact assessment stage that is Kadoma, Mhandamabwe and Epworth,” he said.
Petrotrade commenced operations in 2014 after the unbundling of its forerunner, the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NocZim).
