Fuel prices to remain unchanged in the first pricing window of September– IES
Fuel prices have been tipped to remain unchanged in the first pricing window of September 2023, the Institute for Energy Security(IES) has indicated.
This means fuel prices will stay the same in the first two weeks of September.
In the first pricing window of August, fuel prices went up by 4.3% at the pumps.
A market leader, GOIL sold a litre of petrol at ₵12.95 from its previous price of ₵12.40.
Diesel was also sold at ₵12.95 per litre from its old price of ₵12.45.
According to IES, this is on the back of the slowed down of international movements of all petroleum products together with a stable cedi against the U.S. dollar in the second-pricing window of August 2023.
“The various finished petroleum products as monitored on Standard & Poor (S&P) Platt platform within the past window exhibited the following dynamics; Gasoline [petrol] traded at $989.48 per metric tonne against the previous $967.29 per metric tonne, Gasoil [diesel] also moved from $901.73 per metric tonne to $912.68, and Liquid Petroleum Gas price moved to $557.05 per metric from $547.52 per metric tonne. These changes led to a price effect of 2.29%, 0.13% and 1.7% increase in all 3 product prices; Gasoline, gasoil and LPG respectively, it said.
IES economic desk’s analysis of the foreign exchange (forex) market, over the last two weeks revealed that the Ghana cedi depreciated against the U.S. dollar moving from ¢11.39 to ¢11.45, representing 0.52% depreciation of Ghana cedi over the period”, it added.
Some petroleum experts said this was the biggest price hike of finished petroleum products on the international market since January 2023.
On the local fuel market, the second pricing window of August, saw prices of domestic petroleum products increase by the following margins; 5% for diesel and 3.90% for petrol.
A simple random sampling of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) price data by the IES over the two weeks put the national average prices per litre of petrol at ¢13.02, ¢12.85 for diesel and ¢13.14 per kilogramme for LPG.
Meanwhile, Brent Crude sold at $84.48 per barrel yesterday August 28, 2023, and at an average price per barrel of $84.16.
It is because the world’s largest oil importer, China, is experiencing a severe property crisis that has reduced risk appetite across markets and caused serious concerns about the health of its economy.