Asia/Pacific News
Bangladeshi Government Mulling Fuel Oil Price Review
Bangladesh State Minister for Energy Nasrul Hamid says the government is considering a review of the country's oil prices, which are high despite global prices having fallen to multi-year lows, local media reports.
"There is an initiative to have a regulation that will tune our prices with the global market. We are studying the effects there are to apply such methods for the first time," said Hamid to Parliament on Thursday.
Fuel oil prices in Bangladesh are reported to have been originally raised in 2013 at a time when the price of per barrel oil had swelled to $122 per barrel.
While global oil prices haven fallen substantially since then, prices in Bangladesh are reported to have been kept high in order to recover financial losses of the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC).
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is reported to have previously said that prices will be lowered once the BPC's outstanding amounts are paid off.
However, a parliamentary panel on the energy ministry is said to have recently insisted that the government consider reducing the country's oil prices right away.
"All fuel oils are related to each other. So prices for kerosene, diesel, furnace oil and octane will be changed in one go," said the country's finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, noting that any prices changes will be decided upon in consultation with the Prime Minister.
As a result of persistent high prices in the local market, both public and private consumers are reported to have pushed to import fuel from the international market.
"If the government does not decrease fuel price the price of electricity will also not decrease," Muhammad Hossain, Managing Director at Power Cell has said.
In terms of global prices, Ship & Bunker reported earlier this week that CNBC analyst Jim Cramer, echoing the sentiments of many critics, called the proposal by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar, and Venezuela to freeze oil production "a total hoax," warning that oil prices will plummet again.
