Price of Premium Gasoline May Drop by Rp600 in February

Jakarta (Antara Bali) -- State oil and gas company PT Pertamina has predicted that the price of subsidized premium gasoline may fall to below Rp7,000 per liter from February, following a persistent drop in global oil prices.

         "With the current price trend, the price of premium gasoline may decline by more than Rp600 to below Rp7,000 per liter," Pertamina Marketing and Commercial Director Ahmad Bambang said here on Monday.  
     Oil prices stood at around US$50 per barrel and fuel products in Singapore, according to the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), reached US$60 per barrel from December 25, he stated.

        "Every drop of MOPS at US$1 per barrel may cause the price of fuel to fall by Rp50 (a liter). But this depends on the rupiah's exchange rate against the dollar," Bambang remarked.

        Under the Energy and Mineral Resources Minister's regulation number 39/2014, the price of subsidized premium gasoline fell to Rp7,600 from Rp8,500 per liter from January 1.    
   The price of premium gasoline follows market prices.

        The new price of premium gasoline refers to MOPS at US$73 per barrel and the rupiah's exchange rate at Rp12,380 per dollar from November 25 to December 24.

         Moreover, the government has decided to review the price of premium gasoline every month.

         The price of premium gasoline from February 1 will use MOPS assumption and the exchange rate between December 25 and January 24.

         In addition, the marketing and commercial director also predicted that the price of oil will increase in March. "But we predict that the price hike will remain below US$70 per barrel," he noted.

         Furthermore, acting director general of oil and gas at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Naryanto Wagimin affirmed after a leadership meeting of the ministry on Monday that the fuel prices would drop from February 1, following a decline in global oil prices.

        On Monday, oil price hit a 5.5-year record low in the Asian trading.

        The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) light sweet crude oil for the February 2015 shipment fell 81 cents to US$47.55 per barrel and the price of Brent dropped 90 cents to US$49.21 per barrel.

         Analysts have predicted the prices of WTI and Brent crude oil to hit record lows of US$45 and US$48 per dollar, respectively, this week.

         With the downward trend in global oil prices, the prices of non-subsidized gasoline and diesel oil will drop again on February 1, Wagimin pointed out.  
  The government lowered the price of subsidized gasoline to Rp7,600 from Rp8,000 per liter and that of subsidized diesel oil to Rp7,250 from Rp7,500 per liter on January 1.  (WDY)