KARACHI, March 15: The Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC) on Friday increased the prices of petrol, light diesel oil (LDO), high octane blending component (HOBC), kerosene, JP-4 and JP-1 by 4.87 to 7.8 per cent.
However, the OCAC had maintained the price of high speed diesel (HSD) at Rs15.63 per litre. The ex-depot fixed sales prices at 29 designated locations will be effective from March 16 to 31, 2002.
Consumer will pay Rs1.68 per litre more for petrol from Saturday at Rs 32.19 from Rs 30.51 per litre, while the price of HOBC has been increased to Rs36.59 from Rs 34.89 per litre.
The new price of kerosene is Rs14.97 as compared to Rs14.23 per litre, while the LDO will now cost Rs13.86 as against Rs13 per litre. JP-4 price has been surged by 7.80 per cent to Rs14.93 from Rs13.85, while JP-1 will carry a new rate of Rs11.20 from Rs10.53 per litre, up by 6.36 per cent.
In a statement, OCAC linked the increase in fixed sale price of all products to abnormal increase of global oil prices, ranging from 7.1 to 16.2 per cent, during the last fortnight, due to tension in the Middle East region particularly in view of Iraqi situation.
Like the past practice, the OCAC has been continuously avoiding by not mentioning the actual global crude oil prices prevailing from March 1 to 15 as compared to February 15 to 28 on which the local prices have been fixed. The Committee simply gives a plain statement that the global oil prices have gone up by some percentage. The committee also does not reveal, in its press release, the rate of the rupee and the dollar prevailing in its fortnightly comparison for determining the landed cost of crude oil.
According to OCAC, the prices are revised in accordance with the prescribed pricing mechanism approved by the Petroleum Ministry.
Prices of Middle Eastern crude oil have also registered an increase of 15.5 per cent during the same period. The rupee rate remained stable during the fortnight with a fractional increase on the average.
On Friday, the government has notified the increase in margin of the oil marketing companies (OMCs) and dealers on all products to 3 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively and ultimately to 3.5 per cent and 4 per cent in July 2002.
However, the OCAC, in its fortnightly price fixation, had not fully passed on the impact of margin increase in order to mitigate the impact the current increase in global oil prices on the consumers.
The OCAC decided to stagger the margin increase in all other products except in the case of HSD due to which the overall margin on motor spirit and HOBC has been increased by 10 paisa per litre and for kerosene and LDO the increase has been kept at five paisa per litre.
The sale price of diesel has, however, not been increased in spite of the increase in global markets and margin rise — as the cargoes imported and received during the fortnight during the period when prices had not risen.
FUEL OIL: Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has increased the prices of high sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) by Rs7.67 per ton to Rs10,189 from Rs9,463 per ton. The price of light sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) has been kept unchanged at Rs10,786. Shell Pakistan Limited (SPL) has also surged the prices of fuel oil by Rs691.15 to Rs10,159.10 from Rs9,467.95 per ton.
