In exclusive statements made to Egypt Oil & Gas Amr Mustafa, EGPC Vice Executive Chairman for Operations, said that the quantities of gasoline supplied today had been increased to 22,000 tons from 20,000, for both the petrol 80 and 92 types, a 10% rise over the normal rate. This was to meet the needs of citizens in local markets and resolve bottlenecks that have momentarily emerged at a small number of fuel stations.

Fuel stations had witnessed over the past few days, even on Monday evening, a gasoline shortage crisis followed by car jams in front of stations.

He explained that the 10-day strategic reserve would be utilized to supply the domestic market over the next two weeks, specifically to head off the current crisis and prevent it cascading and spreading to all the provinces. Between 40 to 42,000 tons of diesel will also be pumped daily to prevent a diesel crisis like the current gasoline crisis.

He insisted that there is no gasoline shortage, but that the current crisis and the bottlenecks at a number of stations resulted from the late arrival of cargo to those stations. That in combination with the high rates of citizens’ consumption of fuel with the coming of Eid al-Adha.