With petroleum dealers beginning to pick up oil supply from the Nepal Oil Corporation ( NOC), oil supply within the Nepali capital, Kathmandu Valley, has seen marked improvement Wednesday.

More than 100,000 liters of petrol, 72,000 liters of diesel and 250,000 liters of kerosene have been supplied to various petrol pumps since Tuesday, deputy director of NOC Icha Bikram Thapa told reporters on Wednesday.

More than 500 kilo liters of petrol, diesel and kerosene are on the way to Kathmandu, Thapa said.

Most petroleum dealers have not been procuring petroleum products from the NOC stores in the last couple of days as a sign of solidarity to the agitation, despite NOC holding enough oil stock.

"The general strike, curfew and obstruction in vehicular movement have been the constraints in supplying petroleum products despite NOC holding sufficient stocks," said Thapa.

Tankers carrying fuels are now reaching petrol pumps in Kathmandu, he said.

At present NOC only stocks 4,000 kilo liters of diesel, 5,000 kilo liters of kerosene and 1,000 kilo liters of petrol, according to Thapa.

Earlier the stock used to be 6,300, 7,000 and 1,500 kilo liters, respectively.

The state-owned petroleum products' supplier Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) had only four more days of oil stock left in Kathmandu on Monday.

NOC is facing a sea of problems such as financing, disrupted supply line and increasing price of petroleum products in the international market, besides the shortage of petro-products, an official of NOC said on condition of anonymity.

According to the official, NOC failed to pay its dues amounting to about 2.70 billion Nepali rupees (38.5 million U.S. dollars) to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), its sole supplier of petro products on April 15, due to its inability to raise loans from Nepali commercial banks and the ongoing slack in daily transactions in petroleum products.

IOC is learnt to have been putting pressure on NOC for the defaulted payment, for continuing petroleum supplies, the official revealed.

But even if the supply remains normal from IOC, NOC oil tankers was finding it difficult to reach Kathmandu Valley due to the strike-caused transport problem, the official added.

The Nepali seven political party alliance called a general strike on April 6.

Source: Xinhua