(Business in Cameroon) - To enable the sustainable supply of petroleum products in Cameroon, the Minister of Water and Energy (Minee) Gaston Eloundou Essomba recently launched an international call for tenders to import 465,000 metric tons (MT) of petroleum products for October, November and December 2020.
The products include 150,000 metric tons of gasoline, 210,000 metric tons of diesel, 60,000 metric tons of JET A1, 15,000 metric tons of Fuel Oil 1500, and 30,000 metric tons of Fuel Oil 3500.
According to the official, the products should be delivered by sea exclusively (other shipping methods are excluded) to Douala or Limbe in the containers of Société camerounaise des dépôts pétroliers ou de la Société Nationale de raffinage (SCDP). The bids are scheduled to be opened on August 3, 2020, by an ad hoc committee.
Since the end of 2019, Cameroon set up a new sustainable market supply mechanism to minimize costs and potential shortfalls that would continue to expose the government's cash position. It consists of selecting, by an international call for tenders, four traders that will, for a given period, supply large quantities of petroleum products via sea. The main selection criterion is the competitive level of premiums. The products thus supplied are to be sold to local marketers and importers. According to Gaston Eloundou Essomba, the country could save CFAF150 billion per year thanks to this new mechanism.
In the framework of that mechanism, for the February-May 2020 period, Cameroon selected Nigerian Sahara Energy as the main bidder. Besides the latter, the next three immediate winners were Vitol (a Swiss petroleum products trading company), Addax Energy (Swiss), and Petra Energy SA (Swiss). During this period, Sahara Energy delivered 300 million liters of fuel on Cameroonian soil.
Sylvain Andzongo