IES projects fuel prices to remain unchanged for next two weeks

Fuel prices are anticipated to remain steady during the first two weeks of next month, the Institute for Energy Security (IES) has projected.

According IES, the projec­tion is based 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 tonne from $547.52 per metric tonne. These changes led to price effect of 2.29 per cent, 0.13 per cent and 1.7 per cent increase in all 3 products prices; Gasoline, Gasoil and LPG respectively,” it said in a statement.

It said the 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 GH¢11.39 to GH¢11.45, representing 0.52 per cent depreciation of the Ghana cedi over period.

The second pricing window of August saw prices of domestic pe­troleum products increased by the following margins; 5 per cent for diesel and 3.90 per cent 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 GH¢13.02, GH¢12.85 for diesel and GH¢13.14 per kilogramme for LPG.

Meanwhile, Brent Crude sold for $84.48 per barrel yesterday and at an average price per barrel of $84.16.

This 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.

It is likely to further affect global demand though data from China oil consumption suggests otherwise, for which analysts hold the fears are unwarranted.

 BY TIMES REPORTER