The Airports Company South Africa has emphasized the urgent need to address the issue of security of fuel supply in the country. ACSA has been engaged in talks with various stakeholders since announcing this week that it has just over seven days left of jet fuel reserves.
It comes after a fire at the National Petroleum Refiners of South Africa refinery disrupted the production of jet fuel earlier this month.
ACSA has also pointed out that the shrinking number of refineries in the country has left the aviation industry increasingly reliant on imports.
ACSA says the increased dependence on imported jet fuel has highlighted the need to create a policy to have a strategic reserve of jet fuel in the country.
The Group Executive for Operations at ACSA Terence Delomoney says the situation has provided several lessons.
“As ACSA, as the aviation industry, including the airlines including the oil companies, is that in order to mitigate some of these operational risks we got to a point of trying to increase operational buffer stock. So, there was a point in time when the operational buffer stock that was held was about three to five days. We managed to, with all of these role-players, build that up to about 7 or 8 days. And in fact, it’s because of that that we are able to absorb a little bit of the shock of what’s happening now in January. However, that’s not sufficient.”
Meanwhile, some experts suggest that executives at ACSA have placed themselves in a high-risk position through mismanagement.
Aviation analyst Desmond Latham agrees storage facilities need to be improved.
“The same story seems to be going around and around constantly, and no one really is willing to take accountability for the situation. The problem is that 3% of our GDP roughly is linked directly to aviation business travel tourism, just the way in which commerce works. In our modern global world is linked to jet fuel and the management of aviation itself. So, a handful of these executives are actually holding a lot of us to ransom when it comes to this really crucial sector, which is strategic.”
With the NATREF refinery set to resume operations at the end of next month, the aviation industry is in a race to secure enough supply to meet demand in the meantime.
Video: Flights diverted from OR Tambo to other airports due to jet fuel supply challenges
