MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Amid strike, Uruguay's Ancap secures jet fuel supply through imports

Ancap's decision to clean up an accounting mess resulted in a strike that could isolate Uruguay from the world - hence the need to import jet fuel

Uruguay's state-run oil company has imported jet fuel from Argentina to guarantee a normal supply to keep the international airports of Montevideo and Punta del Este operational amid a workers' strike, it was reported Monday.

Ancap President Alejandro Stipanicic told Montevideo's daily El País that air services were not to be harmed by the labor measure, but he admitted he hoped the conflict would soon be over.

Presidential Secretary Álvaro Delgado questioned the Ancap workers' measure that affects the supply of aviation fuel and said that it would be “a disaster” to leave Uruguay without supply.

“We have the responsibility to ensure that there is supply for airlines and connectivity. It would be a disaster for Uruguay to leave the country without a fuel supply,” he stressed.

Ancap had announced last Saturday that the strike carried out by the Fancap labor grouping prevented “the supply to commercial flights operating in Carrasco and Laguna del Sauce” international airports in Montevideo and Punta del Este respectively.

The union has launched an “indefinite” strike at the air-fuel plants at Carrasco and Laguna del Sauce. “Fancap chose the path of extreme measures to prevent the execution of a decision of the company that was communicated in August last year and that this year, days before being implemented, was postponed as a sign of goodwill,” Ancap had warned.

The company announced in August 2021 “the decision to stop operating the aero-fuel plants governed by 2014 contracts in Laguna del Sauce and earlier in the case of Carrasco.”

Ancap director Richard Charamelo explained during the weekend that the measure was “of incredible dimensions.”

“We cannot understand how in a situation that has been handled for a year, where the entity loses more than a million dollars a year and where the four workers are going to be relocated, they end up taking a disproportionate measure that affects connectivity at Carrasco Airport and throughout the country,” said Charamelo, who also pointed out that Ancap's decision would “not affect any worker,” but would rather help “clean up the accounts, which have been in deficit for several years.”

“There were people in the eastern terminal who earned salaries higher than those of a minister,” Charamelo explained.