Fuel prices to go down 24%

The Institute for Energy Security (IES) is forecasting between 16 and 24% drop in prices of fuel on the local market in the first Pricing-window for April 2020.

This is due to the significant fall of 33.36% in price of Brent crude, coupled with the considerable drop in the prices of petrol (51.29%) and diesel(27.96%) on the international market. Crude oil prices remain largely below $30-margin for this window due to a drowning global oil market as a result of unmanageable surplus as world’s largest economies lockdown, cutting consumption by 25%.

However, the cedi depreciated by 4.68% against the U.S. dollar in the last two weeks, trading at an average price of GH¢5.59. This is from the previous rate of GH¢5.34 recorded in the first Pricing-window of March, 2020.

Meanwhile, fuel prices at the pump experienced some 8.8% average reductions across some major Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), as against the National Petroleum Authority’s pronouncement of 15% reduction for the Pricing-window under review.

While Shell (Vivo) reduced petrol and diesel by roughly 4.3%, Goil and Total Ghana shaved-off approximately 11% for petrol and diesel.

Zen Petroleum on the hand gave away a whopping 14% for both products to sell at GH¢4.25 per litre, thus making it the OMC with the least selling price on the market.

As a result, the national average price of fuel per litre at the pump stands at GH¢4.88 and GH¢4.90 for petrol and diesel respectively.

Aside Zen Petroleum, Benab Oil, Nick Petroleum, Frimps Oil and Champion Oil were counted by IES Market-scan as some of the OMCs with least-priced fuels on the local market, relative to others in the downstream petroleum sector.

Source: Starr