Grant petrol from China to arrive Kathmandu on Sunday

China has announced to provide 1,000 tons of petrol (1.3 million liters) to Nepal on grant. "NOC Spokesperson Deepak Baral among other officials as well as representatives from Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu are heading to Kerung Friday morning," an NOC source told Republica. "The team will collect 100 tons of petrol on Friday evening." Talking to Republica, Baral said Chinese tankers will arrive at Kerung on Friday itself. "We will refill the petrol in our tankers as soon as the Chinese tankers arrive," he said. He further added that NOC has already forwarded details of Nepali tankers, drivers and co-drivers. NOC is using tankers having capacity of 12,000 liters to transport fuel from China. "We are using tankers of low-capacity to begin with as we don't know the road conditions yet," Baral said, adding that they expect to complete transport of petrol given as grant assistance. The petrol, however, will not be distributed to private vehicles as 1,000 tons of petrol will be insufficient to meet even 20 percent of the demand. NOC officials said around 3,500 kiloliters (KL) of petrol would be required to meet the existing demand. Nepal on Wednesday signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China for supply of petroleum products after Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) -- Nepal's sole fuel supplier for the last four decades -- stopped supplying fuel to Nepal citing Tarai unrest. Meanwhile, a day after Nepal signed MoU with China to procure one-third of its fuel demand from the northern neighbor, IOC on Thursday said it would increase fuel supply to Nepal. "IOC has four decades long agreement with Nepal and supplies have come down in the past month because of route blockades. We are hopeful of increasing supplies once the protest subsides," IOC chairman and managing director B Ashok said, according to a news report publish in Indian business news portal Business Standard. NOC officials also said IOC on Thursday refilled must of the Nepali tankers that had reached its refineries.