Chief Executive Officer of the West Indies Oil Company Ltd (WIOC), Gregory Georges says adverse weather conditions are responsible for the shortage of cooking gas on the island.
Over the weekend, almost all petrol stations and other cooking gas vendors were all out of the product.
By Saturday morning, cooking gas was unavailable at most vendors.
A statement from WIOC on Monday said that Antigua and Barbuda, as well as several other Caribbean countries were experiencing delays in the arrival of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) because of severe weather conditions.
Last week, reports indicated that the Antigua Port Authority’s chief pilot could not safely navigate the tankers into the harbour because of the sea conditions.
For several days, the Met Office here in Antigua and Barbuda has issued cautions of hazardous sea conditions and advisories have been issued for sea bathers and small craft operators to exercise extreme caution.
These conditions are also impacting neighbouring islands.
The weather conditions have also had an impact on aircraft arriving at the V. C. Bird International Airport as air traffic control has had arriving planes change the usual west to east landing pattern to the opposite direction because of changes in wind conditions.
These weather conditions are expected to improve over the course of the week, and WIOC’s CEO has said that LPG supplies will regularise when this occurs.
He also noted that the supply of other petroleum products is unaffected by this development. Georges continued that there is no need for concern as petroleum product reserves are more than adequate to meet the country’s needs.
