Vijayawada: Oil marketing companies have started imposing curbs on supply of petrol and diesel to fuel stations. At normal times, oil companies like IOC, BPCL and HPCL supply nearly seven lakh litres of diesel and four lakh litres of petrol to about 3,500 fuel stations across AP per day.
Bharat Petroleum started reducing supply in Visakhapatnam on Thursday, providing fuel to a limited number of fuel stations and other companies followed suit. The time of loading of fuel to underground tanks at fuel stations as been restricted to between 10 am and 3.30 pm against the earlier 8 am to 6.30 pm.
Oil companies claimed that following the revision of rates, they were incurring losses due to the difference between the cost and sale price to the tune of Rs 25 on diesel per litre and Rs eight on petrol. They said they were ready to prune supply to meet half the demand.
Sources said that though the oil companies had fuel, they were supplying less to cut their losses.
P. Ravi Kumar, AP Federation of Petroleum Traders state general secretary, said, “We want the Centre and the state government to issue directions to the oil companies not to impose cuts fuel supply to prevent panic buying.”
He said, “We appeal to the state government to issue directions to the district collectors to monitor supply of fuel as per demand to avoid any shortage.”
