The stewards of Mozambique’s fuel imports

Mozambique

Joao Macandja, managing director of Imopetro, talks to The Energy Year about transparency in Mozambique’s fuel importation system and ensuring that national fuel inventories are sufficient to meet internal demand. Imopetro is the exclusive agent for importing liquid and gaseous fuels in Mozambique.

What is Imopetro’s role in Mozambique’s fuel distribution?
Mozambique is a regulated market and Imopetro takes the lead in planning for the country’s fuel needs and centralises imports so that all the operators in the market have the same importation costs. Imopetro facilitates the process but financial responsibility ultimately falls on the designated importers, who provide the funds and the guarantees with support from Mozambican banks.
Transparency is crucial in this process. By ensuring transparency in its operations, Imopetro establishes credibility with suppliers. This allows us to secure more favourable importation terms, such as through extended payment periods. By building confidence in the system we have been able to extend importers’ credit terms from 90 days to 120 days. This provides for a more dynamic system and greater reliability for the stakeholders involved in the fuel import process.
Furthermore, Imopetro plays a vital operational role, ensuring nationwide fuel and LPG supply across the country’s vast territory throughout the year. Imopetro monitors national and regional fuel stock levels and ensures availability across the country by co-ordinating logistics. This is a key factor in preventing fuel shortages.

How does the company ensure transparency in the fuel importation process?
Imopetro is committed to complete transparency and this is reflected in our utilisation of open tenders. Proposals are submitted in sealed envelopes and opened simultaneously in a public forum, so there is no opportunity for pre-tender discussions between Imopetro and potential suppliers and all participants can see the proposals submitted by each contender. This ensures impartiality.

Will Mozambique’s changing energy landscape affect Imopetro’s role?
As Mozambique’s fuel markets expand, we will have an increasingly important role in ensuring efficient contractor management and timely product delivery. We anticipate greater domestic production of fuels such as LPG, and we will integrate those contributions into our import plans. Domestic production is a positive development, but it is unlikely to be sufficient to fully meet internal demand and Imopetro will play a part in optimising the energy mix.
The success of the Imopetro model is attracting international attention and we are drawing interest from countries seeking to understand our approach. LPG tenders are on hold for the near future due to the anticipated slowdown in imports resulting from increased domestic production, but we are already planning the next round of tenders for other fuels, scheduled for June.

Read our latest insights on:

• Mozambique