By OLIVER SAMBOKO
INDENI petroleum refinery will not be closed but instead turned into another business model because currently government has no money to recapitalize the company.
Speaking in parliament yesterday during debate on the 2022 estimate of expenditure for the Ministry of energy, Minister Peter Kapala said the new dawn Government is committed to ensuring that the energy sector is developed and improved.
He said the reforms in the petroleum subsector is in line with the new Government commitment to restructure the fuel supply chain so as to achieve least cost pricing while ensuring stable supply of petroleum products.
Recently, Government put Indeni Petroleum Refinery in Ndola on care and maintenance, and begun to look at modalities that will reduce the cost of transporting petroleum products aimed at improving efficiency in delivery.
According to estimates, Indeni requires over US$500 million capitalization for equipment upgrade and was this year in April, temporary shutdown which affected 40 percent of the national petroleum requirements.
Following the shutdown, the government then granted oil marketing companies a waiver to import finished petroleum products at a cheaper price.
The waiver was given to 81 companies to import a total of 1.9 billion litres of diesel and 934 million litres of petrol.
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