Right to protect commercial interests - Liquigas

The position follows hot in the heels of industrial action that was planned to start today where gas cylinder distributors will indefinitely halt door-to-door supply as from today.

Announcing the strike, GTRU president Vince Farrugia said the government, in granting licences to new distributors Easygas, is ignoring the existing licence structure what has been repeated recognised and accepted in the past.

The GRTU is requesting that government sign an agreement binding it to either bring new distributors in line with the existing system, or ‘dissolve’ it and pay compensation to the existing distributors.

In its statement, Liquigas said that during the privatisation of the LPG business in November 2008, Liquigas Malta Ltd succeeded Enemalta in the standard distribution agreement that Enemalta had with 30 Distributors across Maltaand Gozo, which grants the Distributors exclusive territories.

The Malta Resources Authority has issued new licences to a third party to distribute “non Liquigas LPG”.  Competition in bulk distribution is under way and competition in cylinders will start shortly, it said.

“The Distributors wish to preserve their territorial exclusivity in the cylinder distribution market by insisting that they should distribute both sources of supply,” the company said.

It maintained that “competition should be encouraged at all stages of the distribution chain and market forces should be allowed to play their part.”

Liquigas Maltaregrets the inconvenience caused by the strike being called by the GRTU.