Kathmandu, February 14

Nepal Oil Corporation the state-owned petroleum company has started supplying almost double the quantity of petrol against the daily demand from today, considering the long queues of vehicles in front of fuel stations in the Kathmandu Valley.

NOC has said that it will continue to supply 600,000 litres of petrol every day till the situation returns to normalcy. Petrol consumption in the Valley hovers around 350,000 litres per day.

NOC Spokesperson Mukunda Ghimire claimed today that there would not be any long queue of vehicles in front of fuel stations by the end of this week.

All 114 fuel stations of the Valley and neighbouring districts have been distributing fuel supplied by NOC since Friday.

However, fuel rationing will continue this week also. Two-wheelers will be able to get up to five litres and four-wheelers will get up to 15 litres at one time during refilling.

NOC, however, said it would take about a month to smoothen the supply of cooking gas.

Half-cylinder refilling system will continue till the supply of cooking gas from India normalises.

During normal times, refineries of India Oil Corporation Barauni, Haldia and Mathura used to supply 60 bullets (of 18 tonnes capacity) cooking gas a day.

But currently only 40 bullets of cooking gas are being supplied to Nepal every day.

Loan burden lessened

KATHMANDU: Nepal Oil Corporation has lessened its loan burden by Rs 11.24 billion this fiscal.

According to NOC Spokesperson Mukunda Ghimire, the government entity has cleared loans of all financial institutions.

“Now NOC owes Rs 12.64 billion to the government,” said Ghimire. NOC, in this fiscal, cleared loans of Employment Provident Fund worth Rs 6 billion, Citizen Investment Trust (Rs 3 billion), Everest Bank (Rs 1.14 billion), Nabil Bank (Rs 800 million) and Bank of Kathmandu (Rs 300 million).

The government charges three per cent interest on loan extended to NOC.