Liquigas runs out of cylinders

The cylinder working stock at Qajjenza gas filling plant has been completely depleted, Liquigas said.

It said in a statement that the authorities' failure to take concrete action with tangible results for the return of Liquigas cylinders being hoarded by Easygas led to the untenable situation where, tomorrow, gas distributors would not have cylinders to load on their trucks.

"Liquigas understands and expresses its concern for the gas distributors and the consumers.

"Liquigas did all that was possible to safeguard the distributors' interests, even buying more thousands of cylinders than actually required in a normal situation."

But buying more cylinders was not going to solve anything if the authorities did not stop Easygas from persisting "in its abusive practice", the sole aim of which was to try to cripple Liquigas, the company said.

It said that for the past four months, Liquigas had been calling on the authorities to take action against the hoarding of Liquigas cylinders by Easygas.

"Liquigas is not afraid of competition. Let us compete on the price and quality of service, no problem, but hoarding your competitor's cylinders to cripple his distribution system is definitely an unjust act.

"In other European countries, when a competitor starts playing a foul game to cripple the other side, the authorities intervene immediately to restore order. Is Malta an exception?" asked Liquigas CEO Roberto Capelluto.

He said the situation could be normalised if the authorities issued clear regulations reflecting the good practices adopted all across Europe and not tried to re-invent the wheel as this would create even more confusion and in the end would not deliver the aspired benefits for the consumers.

"All along, Liquigas has been repeatedly telling the authorities that the situation is deteriorating week by week, day by day.

"And that there will soon come a day when, unless the authorities persuade Easygas to return the thousands of cylinders to their rightful owners, there will be no cylinder working stock at Qajjenza. That day has arrived," he said.

Yesterday, Easygas denied it is causing a supply shortage by “hoarding” its rival’s cylinders and accused Liquigas of choosing to “whine” to the authorities because it was not coping with market demand.

It said Liquigas was blaming its inadequacy to supply over the fact that Easygas was ‘hoarding’ empty cylinders.