Myanmar lifts fuel import ban after storm

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government has lifted a ban on private companies importing fuel to try to ease a chronic energy shortage in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, a Yangon-based diplomat said on Wednesday.

The major needs in the former capital were fuel and water, the diplomat said, to replace supplies cut off by a storm that caused widespread structural damage but limited loss of life compared with at least 22,000 dead in the Irrawaddy delta.

"Private companies have secured an agreement from the government to import fuel, I think, tax-free," the diplomat told Reuters in Bangkok. "I think it's also only on a temporary basis, but they haven't been given an actual timeframe."

Normally, only the government is able to bring fuel into the former Burma.

Despite criticism of the reviled military authorities as being slow to respond, the diplomat said they were gradually patching up services in the city of 5 million, where food prices have skyrocketed amid fear of shortages.

"The major thing is fuel and water, and we're still living a little on borrowed time on that," the diplomat said.

"But I think over the next few days the water source in most areas will be mended and I think fuel will be making its way in large supplies."

Across the city, vehicles are waiting in lines several kilometers (miles) long at filling stations and people are having to queue with buckets and tubs at water distribution points.

Thailand's biggest oil and gas firm, PTT, said it was getting ready to ship $400,000 of fuel, at least a quarter of which was diesel -- vital for running generators in a city still with power five days after the cyclone struck.

However, U.N. aid experts in Bangkok said a lot of repair work had to be done at Yangon port before tankers could dock and start unloading.

Several boats sank in Yangon harbor during Saturday's storm, and some jetties and pontoons came loose, the government has said.

"The port is closed because ships sunk and it also sustained damage," Richard Horsey of the United Nations humanitarian arm told Reuters in Bangkok after an emergency meeting of aid officials.

"It's a question of how quickly to get the port open. It could be some days," he said.

(Additional reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan and Darren Schuettler; Editing by Grant McCool and Alex Richardson)