Petrol, diesel shortage crippling economy of Myanmar’s largest cities

Long queues of cars, trucks, and even tractors brought traffic to a slow crawl on some of Yangon’s and Naypyitaw’s busiest roads, locals said on Friday, as drivers waited to receive their rationed amounts of petrol and diesel. Prices for fuel have risen precipitously even as petrol stations have set limits on the amounts sold to each customer at each filling, worth 30,000 kyat (US $9.20) per car and 6,000 kyat (US $1.90) per motorbike, the cities’ residents said. “I only got the 6,000-kyat amount, which is less than two litres. With that amount, I don’t even know if I can get by,” said a motorbike-trishaw driver in Yangon, adding that he waited through the night without sleeping only to get less than two litres in the end. Fuel prices have increased to 3,045 kyat (US $0.94) per litre of 95, 2,900 (US $0.89) per litre of 92, 2,560 kyat (US $0.79) per litre of diesel, and 3,115 (US $0.96) per litre of pure diesel at market rates. In the Myanmar junta’s administrative capital, Naypyitaw, residents are dealing with the same problem, struggling to obtain sufficient fuel to keep their vehicles running for work, business, routine errands, and emergencies. Local media reported on Thursday that a queue of hundreds of cars had formed at fuel stations near the capital city’s Myoma Market and the Naypyitaw City Development Guesthouse. The short supply has even forced many filling stations to shut down across Yangon, Mandalay, and other cities. According to one Yangon resident, who asked not to be identified, the fuel shortage is even worse for residents of the country’s commercial hub than it was last year. “The only reason I was able to go to the office today was because I got fuel yesterday. But I had to drive with the aircon switched off,” she said, adding, “Thanks to the rain these days, fortunately it’s not too hot.” Taking taxis in Yangon has also become impractical, she said, since the fares have risen along with fuel prices. Myanmar has been in political turmoil and suffering through a halting economic recovery since the military coup of 2021. The primary reason for the short supply of petrol and diesel is Myanmar’s diminishing reserves of foreign currency, especially the dollars used to purchase fuel oil from abroad, business sources said. The junta-controlled Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) announced on Wednesday that it plans to allocate US $100 million to fuel import businesses to address the problem, but it remains to be seen how the CBM plans to divide the dollars among the importers eligible to receive the assistance. The fuel stations not only limit the amount of fuel sold per customer but also the number of vehicles filled per day, according to the Yangon resident who spoke with Myanmar Now. She added that when she bought 50,000 kyat (US $15.40) worth of petrol recently, it only lasted two days, and that she had seen an increasing number of cars with number plates from Naypyitaw and Mandalay, as well as tractors and road-rollers that normally would not be seen refuelling at ordinary filling stations. “The number of cars is still growing. The roads are full of vehicles in double-file queues,” she added. “I have never seen vehicles such as tractors and road-rollers in the city queuing up like this. People can end up waiting 24 hours just to refuel.” She surmised that this was due to the rationing, with vehicles turned away at one station going to join the queue at another, causing congestion on the city’s roads and worsening the problem. Having read the news about the junta’s plan to allocate US $100 million to petrol and diesel importers, she was sceptical that the measure would be of much use in the long term, saying it might provide a few days’ relief but did nothing to address the underlying causes of the shortage. “It’s the ordinary people that have to bear the cost of all this,” she added.

Petrol, diesel shortage crippling economy of Myanmar’s largest cities

As fuel oil becomes scarcer, civilians whose livelihoods have been impacted are sceptical that the junta’s plan to inject US $100 million into struggling petrol and diesel import businesses will have a lasting effect

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