The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe Thursday launched an oil-blending venture to produce lubricants.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Energy and Power Development Minister Michael Nyambuya said the oil-blending venture represents an important milestone in the country's energy sector, especially at a time when the sector is facing challenges of shortages of foreign currency that have resulted in limited supplies of fuel and lubricants in the market.

The minister said the company was also working on other hard currency generating projects to support lubricant blending.

Fuel and oil imports are among the critical commodities draining the country's scarce foreign currency reserves. The government encouraged value addition production and reduction of importation to boost economic growth.

Meanwhile the minister took a swipe at fuel importers who he said were behaving like "wild animals" for charging exorbitant prices for fuel when they were accessing foreign currency on the official market.

Fuel prices, for both petrol and diesel, recently went up to between 280,000 and 300,000 Zimbabwean dollars per liter (one U.S. dollars is roughly about 101,000 Zimbabwean dollars), resulting in transport providers hiking their fares.

Source: Xinhua