Good afternoon. Mozambique does not have a fuel crisis. Ships are arriving, supply chains are functioning, and, by all credible accounts, there is no immediate shortage.
But prices will rise. Existing fuel stocks were procured at earlier, lower prices, but new shipments are already being ordered at significantly higher rates. That increase will soon feed through to consumers.
The queues that periodically form at filling stations are a reminder of how exposed the economy remains to imported fuels, even as the country sits on significant domestic energy resources. That contradiction is getting harder to ignore.
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In principle, Mozambique has two clear alternatives for its transport sector: gas and electricity. Both are available domestically. Both could, over time, reduce the country’s dependence on imported petrol and diesel. Yet in practice, neither has moved beyond the margins.
Gas is the more immediate case. Mozambique has long had the technical possibility of using compressed natural gas in vehicles, and in Autogás has a company that in principle stands ready to build out the infrastructure and the market. But progress has been limited.
The economics, on the surface, are compelling. Gas can cost roughly half as much as petrol at the pump, and around 4,000 vehicles are already using it, including commercial fleets of drinks companies Coca-Cola and the distributor Handling. But scaling beyond that has proved difficult.
