Finance and Economic

Gas stations on China’s booming east coast were rationing diesel, pump attendants said on Tuesday, despite Beijing’s insistence that its refiners will ensure supplies at unprofitable state-set prices.

“The line outside our station is at least one kilometer long,” said one station manager in coastal Fujian province, who declined to be named because fuel supplies are a sensitive issue.

Other stations said they had sold out of the day’s supply by noon and did not know if a delivery would arrive on Wednesday.

Down the coast in Guangzhou province, China’s manufacturing hub, diesel was rationed to 300 yuan ($42.56) for cash sales — enough to fill up a family car but just a small portion of a truck tank — and there were queues of up to 20 minutes.

The government said late on Monday that fuel supplies were adequate and that reports of rationing reflected only sporadic problems caused by demand from farmers planting their spring crops and the lingering impact of unusually severe winter weather http://pay-day-home.com.

“Supply tightness, even queues and rationing, in southern China was partly due to rising needs in the spring season as well as more demand after the harsh winter weather,” the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement.

Hoarding in expectation of price rises may have exacerbated shortages, but overall supplies were good as domestic oil product stocks had risen 28 percent from the start of the year, and the country’s oil majors would ensure supplies, the commission added.

But as rationing and queues spread inland and to the country’s financial centre, Shanghai, there were echoes of last October’s supply crisis, China’s worst in four years. 

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