COPEC pushes NPA to cap fuel price increments by OMCs
The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) is advocating for the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to introduce a ceiling on the extent to which Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) can increase fuel prices.
This follows the NPA’s implementation of a price floor, which prohibits OMCs from selling petroleum products below a specified minimum price.
COPEC’s demand is in response to what it says is a surprising development during the first pricing window of December, where OMCs have raised fuel prices despite favorable market conditions that were anticipated to lead to price reductions.
Executive Secretary of COPEC, Duncan Amoah contended that balancing the introduction of the price floor with a price ceiling is critical to ensuring that the interests of consumers are adequately protected within the deregulated petroleum market.
“Our expectation and rightfully so was to the extent that prices were going to stabilize or decline. But then you get a situation where some of the multinationals deliberately or not deliberately….maybe due to forex pressures, have decided to increase prices for the average Ghanaian. That for us is not something we actually expected but we have a deregulated market that allows the OMCs to behave independently as far as pricing is concerned.
“Then again this will bring into sharp focus our demands for the NPA to also set a price ceiling because it cannot be that you will want to set a pricing floor that they[OMCs] cannot sell below but when it comes to the ceiling, they can just sell at any floor at all . That for us is not good enough and we think maybe getting into the New Year, we will now be looking at putting some caps also on how much the individual OMCs should be able to stretch the market,” Duncan Amoah said.
Meanwhile, the NPA for December’s first pricing has set petrol price floor at GHȼ12.10 while that of diesel is priced at GHȼ13.18.
Petroleum Service Providers (PSPs) risk a fine not exceeding GHȼ5,000 as a sanction if they sell their products below this minimum price for December’s first pricing window.
This is contained in the Petroleum Products Pricing Guidelines 2024.