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No petrol price cut in the cards
Petrol dealers will not be lowering retail fuel prices despite declines in the past week in the world oil price, Viet Nam Petroleum Company (Petrolimex) deputy director Vuong Thai Dung has said.
Regulations required petrol distributors to reserve a 30-day supply in advance, Dung said, and the recent reduction of a few dollars a barrel in the global oil price would simply help distributors make up for higher prices in the previous weeks.
The Petrolimex website on Thursday showed that the base price of A92 petrol was VND16,476 per litre, while the retail price was at VND15,990 per litre. They were therefore selling every litre of petrol at a loss of nearly VND500.
Nguyen Tien Thoa, Director of the Ministry of Finance’s Price Management Department, said the crude oil price in Singapore fell last week from US$76 to $71.90 per barrel, while the A92 petrol price fell from $80.60 to $77 per barrel. However, under Decree No 84, the retail price had to be calculated based on the average prices of products on the world market during the prior 30 days of reserving supplies on the domestic market.
"This week, if the world oil price continues to drop, the ministry will suggest that dealers begin to consider a reduction in the retail," he said.
Dung said that domestic petrol and oil trading operated pursuant to Decree No 84 and that State authorities would penalise dealers that did not set retail prices according to regulations.
Le Thi Anh Man, Deputy Director of dealer Saigon Petro, said her company saw losses in April and May so lower wholesale prices now would simply help her company offset losses.
"Consumers want lower prices, but I am sure that, at this moment, there aren’t sufficient conditions to reduce the petrol price," Dung said.
vietnamnet, Vietnamnews
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