Fuel Shortage In Cpt

[GULF69]

This From Notam, And Refers To Shell Consortium:

A)fact From 08/02/08 15:31 To 08/05/08 22:00 A0531/08
E)fuel Supply Precautionary Measures In Place. Scheduled Airline Opr
Departing Point Of Dep Aft 2200 On 8 Feb 2008 Shall Recieve 80
Percent Refuelling Allocation. Non-scheduled Ops Shall Not Be
Refuelled. Opr Are Advised To Tanker Fm Other Ap.

Air Bp At Signature Has Jet A-1, But Not Great Stock...

[farmpilot]

Three months of no jet, really????

[Romeo E.T.]

read somewhere it has to do with ESKOM load shedding and the shutdown or partial shut down of the refinery in Milnerton CPT, that is causing the shortage.......fuel is being road delivered to CPT in the interim......obviously not in large enough quantities to satisfy the aviation sector.

[farmpilot]

You couldn't make it up.................

[groundfloor]

Escom could not guarentee power for a refinery startup after a scheduled shutdown so here we are. Devil comes to Cape Town and visits Pub and sits next to Meraai who is unimpressed with his terrible end frightening appearence. The Devil asks her if she knows who he is - nee damit give me a clue she says....He roars out "I AM THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS" Meraai looks him up and down -"Jys seker infin charge by Fin Escom, NE." (You`r obviously in charge at Escom)". From the "previously lit southern tip of Africa"

[REAL ORCA]

On a serious note, we have enquired a number of times as to the reason for the Avgas shortage in Cape Town over the last year and a half and never been given an answer. Anybody know?

To keep the PC's on the ground so that they don't interfere with Airline traffic!

[evanb]

The Chevron refinery shutdown was not as a result of load shedding. Chevron is ring fenced within the City of Cape Town power grid meaning that it does not get shutdown when there is load shedding. Refineries and smelters, although not mines, are ring fenced and are guaranteed a power supply since the startup procedures are very long and costly, at least a week.

There was an emergency shutdown of the Chevron refinery on Friday 1 February due to a total blackout in the City of Cape Town power grid. They are not guaranteed power in the case of a total blackout. This blackout was not caused by load shedding but by a high capacity distribution failure bringing power into the Western Cape from the north of the country.

The refinery has since restarted but the since they did not produce any fuels for nearly a week stockpiles of all fuels have run very low. In order to try and increase the stockpile back to its necessary levels they need to try and reduce demand slightly since full production is roughly equal to full demand. Without reducing demand slightly the stockpile will never return to safe levels. The rationing is requiring scheduled carriers to tanker in some fuel so that they only pick up 80% of normal deliveries. They can pool this so they can tanker in more on domestic flights and get their full delivery for long haul flights.

What has been interesting is to see how well the system has worked. We had a fuel shortage but yet not one flight was canceled or diverted as a result. The stockpile never ran out and even with no production for over a week everything has run smoothly!

[evanb]

On the AVGAS issue: I stand to be corrected but I think that Chevron in Cape Town does not produce AVGAS and that only Engen in Durban do. Since there is no pipeline between Durban and Cape Town (only between Durban and the Highveld) all AVGAS has to travel to Cape Town by road which leads to an unstable supply chain.

[JetPark]

evanb is 100% correct as regards avgas. an even bigger problem is the supply, or lack thereof, into south africa itself. world-wide production is a problem as a result of a shut down of refined product facilities and this has not helped.

[GULF69]

Correct Jetpark,

another contrubiting factor is the limited availablility of vehicles suitable to transport AVGAS around - both sea and road transport. Due to the lead content of AVGAS, it's not allowed to be transported in vehicles / tankers that transport petrol, or the petrol will be contaminated with lead...

[I.R.PIRATE]

Whats the problem? Its Africa. Get used to it, or get out. you cant be expecting service, standards and efficiency? Where do you come from with your western ideals of having fuel on tap regularly? Take your colonial attitudes and get out of our continent.

humphh...expecting things like fuel,electricity and order....what are the imperialists thinking.

[JetPark]

Now, now IRPirate, the problem (with Avgas that is) is not limited to Africa alone. If the oil industry had its way, there would be no Avgas. Its' volumes are but the outer layer of an onion skin when compared to JetA1 and its continued production is little more than an irritation to them.

[evanb]

Its a worldwide problem. There is a shotage of global refining capacity of all fuels. Really at $20 per barrel it just didn't pay to invest in refining capacity. In South Africa it took state subsidies for years to get the private sector to invest in refining capacity. At current prices there is plenty of incentive for the private sector to invest in refining capcity and they are doing so very quickly ... the problem is that it takes a long time to build a refinery, sometimes up to 10 years!

The problem specifically with AVGAS is that it is one of the smallest markets (globally) for liquid fuels, way behind petrols, diesels, bunker fuels and Jet A1! Really the incentives are for the big refiners to worry about those fuels before AVGAS. The transport issues with AVGAS also reduce the margins significantly and really show up the real issue: there just is not enough profit in the AVGAS market to make it worthwhile for the big refiners (relative to petrol, diesel, etc)!

Its an unfortunate situation that is even more prevalent in many other countries, including Australia and the United States!

[Beta Light]

Point taken on the AVGAS. But what about the JET - A1?? According to ESKOM the power outs will increase.
How will this affect our beloved World Cup 2010 in our harmonious rainbow nation.
I need to take friends to the Korean team games, for some reason the Korean Embassy warned them against travel as Asians are high risk targets, so they are not keen on road travel.

[evanb]

Well refineries are ring fenced ... they do not loose power during load shedding only during total outages which hapen maybe once every two or three years and then its only for a week so I think Jet A1 supplies are pretty safe, especially in the north of the country where the stockpile is very, very large! Load shedding will be a periodical problem until at least 2012, coming and going every few months. The situation seems okay at the moment since electricity supplies seem to have stabilised again but we will have another situation in a few months where there is a supply problem (a base load power station going down for maintenance) and we will have problems again! I think within a year we will have adjusted significantly by ringfencing more neccessary usage (i.e. traffic signalling, transport infrastrucuture, security infrastrucuture, hotels etc). Also demand side management systems are already making a difference and continued efforts will continue to reduce demand! Given all the above it is likely that load shedding will be a challenge during the world cup in 2010 although not a problem. I think safety and security is likely to be more of a problem!

[groundfloor]

SAA tankering in fuel from Frankfurt - 30 tons, huh imagine what that does to the bottom line!!

[evanb]

Given the very short turnaround in CPT wouldn't they normally tanker in fuel from FRA? If they have to tanker in "extra" fuel from FRA they may be able to claim the financial losses from their insurers since it is an uncontrollable event form their (SAA) perspective.