The Secretary of Energy, Darío Martínez, confirmed that the supply of diesel oil is guaranteed, while warning that “there are speculative operations that tend to complicate the situation.”
“The refineries report that they are increasingly supplying the demand for diesel, but there are speculative operations that tend to complicate the situation,” Martínez said in a press release.
“The National Government is working and implementing all the actions that are required so that there is a normal supply of liquid fuels for motorists, transport, industry and the countryside”added the official.
In this sense, Martínez affirmed that “We have worked and successfully resolved the issues of domestic crude oil supply, biofuel prices, and liquid fuel imports”.
“With the oil producers and the refineries we have worked to fully supply the country’s distilleries, so that they use all their installed capacity, and we are achieving it. With the biodiesel producers we have agreed on a price path that has been in force since April 1, which gives them the necessary certainty to buy their raw material and produce and supply that product to the refineries for mixing it with diesel,” the official explained. .
After which he added that “with the corn bioethanol producers, we have resolved the difficult situation posed by the enormous rise in the price of their basic product such as corn, with a decree to be signed and a resolution that would allow that from 1 April, have the necessary price to be able to run your plants at full capacity and plan the purchase of your raw materials.”
Meanwhile, “sugar bioethanol producers, who already have an automatic price mechanism linked to the pump, had their price updated. And work was done with the BCRA so that the import of liquid fuels necessary to satisfy internal demand would remain excluded from a new regulation that is more administratively restrictive, streamlining the entire operation”.
Martínez acknowledged that “the demand for liquid fuels has been growing steadily accompanying the growth of general economic activity, and is already one step above the pre-pandemic, but the companies that refine and market report that they are accompanying with greater production, and importing what necessary, to meet that demand through the usual retail and wholesale channels.
“All of them are producing increasingly, and the one that had planned its annual technical shutdown, which was extended for a few days for technical reasons, reported that it compensated this situation with incremental imports, which it made available to the market,” he emphasized.
“With oil producers and refineries we have worked to fully supply the country’s distilleries, so that they use all their installed capacity, and we are achieving it”
“All have reported that they increased their shipments of liquid fuels to the market, in percentages similar to the increase in demand,” added the secretary.
Finally, the official said that “every year at the beginning of the harvest there is a seasonal increase in the demand for gas oil, as well as every year, around the holidays, there is a seasonal increase in the demand for gasoline.”
“But without a doubt, it is already a classic, that this arrangement of supply and demand is used to speculate on the price increase and generate a psychosis that, if there is a minimal logistical problem, increases it, and if there is no problem, it generates it. , because everyone goes out to fill their tanks and their industrial and agricultural reserves at the same time”.
