THE Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) said there has been a decrease in fuel smuggling.
GEA’s Head Mr. Mahender Sharma, at a news conference last week to launch an energy saving and awareness campaign, explained that the agency has become more adept at identifying the hot spots where illegal activities take place and thereby finding the illegal fuel.

Also, the GEA has been finding fewer samples that have been adulterated, he said.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who joined the GEA Head for the launch of the campaign, issued a warning to persons involved in fuel smuggling, noting that steps are being taken to address this problem.

Sharma pointed out that the Agency uses a simple tester in the field that has a sampling error of 10-30% and this permits persons to challenge the detection system used by the GEA by mixing about 10-20% of the illegal fuel with the legal fuel.

However, to combat this, the GEA will be returning additional samples to the laboratory in Georgetown where a more comprehensive test can be conducted that only has a sampling error of 5%. This would reduce the incidence of mixing of the legal and illegal fuels.

It was noted that the Pomeroon area has the highest incidence of fuel smuggling.