Gqeberha motorists pay the price as fuel berth recommissioning is delayed

While Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe announced an increase in fuel prices from midnight on Tuesday, Nelson Mandela Bay residents continued to pay the price for Transnet’s delays to repair a crucial fuel berth.

The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources announced a 17c/litre increase for petrol, a 54.88c/l to 55.88c/l increase for diesel and a 48.88c/l increase for liquid paraffin.

In June, a tanker collided with the fuel berth at the Port of Port Elizabeth, rendering it unusable. As a result, liquid fuel wholesalers had to fetch fuel from the East London Harbour, 300km away and consumers in Nelson Mandela Bay and its surrounding towns have been paying significantly more for petrol.

Complaining that they could no longer afford to truck in fuel to the metro, liquid fuel wholesalers then applied to Mantashe to have the region rezoned as “inland” so they could recover their transport costs. This was done in October.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber then obtained a court order by agreement with Mantashe that the region would immediately be rezoned back to “coastal” once the fuel berth was recommissioned.

A week ago, Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources spokesperson Raphi Maake said they had not been informed of any delays in recommissioning the fuel berth.

Read more: Minister promises immediate action on NMB fuel price when harbour repaired

On Tuesday, Transnet said it would not meet the 6 December deadline to recommission the berth and instead was aiming for 11 December, blaming bad weather and a shortage of lifting equipment for the delay. The accident happened in June, but the physical repairs only started in September.

Transnet officials have not answered questions from Daily Maverick relating to the project, despite promising to do so.

The CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, Denise van Huyssteen, said Mantashe, in the latest fuel pricing updates, continued to “penalise Nelson Mandela Bay consumers for the cost of hauliers transporting fuel via road from East London, due to the berth at the Port Elizabeth port not being operational”.

Read more: Eastern Cape’s Kariega and Kirkwood bear brunt of petrol price adjustments due to Port Elizabeth Harbour woes

She said it remained unclear when the berth would become fully operational again.

“We estimate that since the rezoning of Nelson Mandela Bay as an inland zone in October of this year, an irrecoverable direct loss to the local economy of approximately R50-million per month has been incurred.   Following tomorrow’s fuel price adjustment, local consumers will accumulatively be paying R2.49 more per litre for 95 unleaded fuel, diesel and paraffin versus what they would have paid if the area was still a coastal zone,” said Van Huyssteen.

“It is our view that the additional costs incurred to date in transporting these fuels into the area by road have been unfairly passed on to businesses, consumers, commuters and local communities. None of these key stakeholders were consulted prior to the rezoning.

“Businesses, consumers, commuters and local communities have been made to bear the brunt of a shipping vessel accident, not caused by them, by paying inflated prices for fuel and indirectly for other goods and services.”

Van Huyssteen urged Transnet to work faster to “ensure that Nelson Mandela Bay can be reinstated as a coastal fuel pricing zone from January 2025”. DM