HCMC – Many fishing boats in some Mekong Delta provinces such as Kien Giang and Ca Mau buy foreign fuel off the country’s southwestern coast as local fuel prices are prohibitively high, said a local industry and trade official.
Le Thi Nhat, deputy director of Kien Giang’s Department of Industry and Trade, told the Daily on the phone on Thursday that owners of fishing boats said offshore fuel was VND3,000 and VND5,000 per liter cheaper than the local product.
Instead of storing a sufficient volume of fuel for their long fishing trip on the high seas, boat owners pump just enough oil to travel from the shore to a designated area offshore to fill up the tanks, Nhat said.
If the situation continues, domestic fuel sales will be hurt.
At a recent meeting with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Nhat raised this concern and asked for measures to cope with the issue.
Meanwhile, the ministry’s market monitoring department has blamed lack of means, and financial and human resources for the failure to prevent fuel smuggling on the high seas.
She said offshore fuel smuggling is happening in Kien Giang and other provinces including Ca Mau.
In the meantime, the Dung Quat Oil Refinery, the country’s first based in Quang Ngai Province, is struggling with a rising backlog of fuels, so it is seeking to sell about 140,000 cubic meters of A92, A95 petrol and diesel oil to Vietnam National Petroleum Corporation this month.
