Today, Thursday, the Competition Council in Morocco – an official body – approved reconciliation agreements with 9 hydrocarbons companies – oil derivatives – in the country, under which these companies pay an amount of 1.84 billion dirhams (about 182 million dollars) as a settlement of dispute cases regarding practices that contradict the rules of competition in the markets.
According to a statement by the Council, the concerned companies and their professional organizations have pledged to work to improve their actions to ensure competitive functioning in the fuel market and prevent the risks of prejudice to competition for the benefit of the consumer.
The Council said that it will monitor the implementation of these pledges for the nine companies operating in the sectors of supply, storage and distribution of gas and gasoline.
Regarding the relationship between local selling prices and international prices for fuel products, the pledges stipulated the preparation and sending of a detailed status, which allows tracking the activity of each company separately, in addition to providing the Council every 3 months with information related to the monthly purchases and sales of the stations completed by each company separately, in addition to their inventory levels. of fuel.
Al-Hussein Al-Yamani, Secretary General of the National Petroleum and Gas Syndicate in Morocco, considered that these compensations represent a “victory” for everyone who has demanded – since the liberalization of the oil sector in the country – the necessity of establishing real competition in the fuel market for the benefit of the local economy and the protection of the consumer and other affected companies.
Al-Yamani told Al Jazeera Net that these compensations – despite their importance – remain small amounts compared to the profits achieved by these companies during the period from 2016 to 2023, estimated at $6 billion.
Al-Yamani, who specializes in oil affairs, called for the necessity of reviving oil refining operations in Morocco in order to achieve the goal of truly liberalizing the sector, protecting the consumer, and supporting the economy.
The National Petroleum and Gas Union in Morocco has called on the government to remove the obstacles preventing the resumption of oil refining at the only Moroccan oil refinery, “Lasmir,” which has been out of work for years.
The company has been in the process of judicial liquidation since 2016 after it was unable to pay its debts amounting to about $4.4 billion.
