KARACHI, April 2 The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has notified the ex-depot price of ethanol blended fuel (E-10) at Rs70.64 per litre effective from April 1, 2010, but the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) would resume E-10 sale from Sunday (April 4) in Sindh only.

It would be cheaper than unleaded motor gasoline by Rs2.50 per litre. The current ex-depot sale price of unleaded petrol is Rs73.14 per litre.

According to Ogra March 31 notification, the prescribed price of E-10 gasoline is Rs56.81 per litre and petroleum levy included in prescribed price (for sale through retail outlets) is Rs9 per litre and for direct sale to consumers by oil companies is Rs11.35 per litre). Rate of inland freight margin (included in maximum ex-depot sales price) comes to Rs4.09 per litre and general sales tax (included in maximum ex-depot sales price) is Rs9.74 per litre. Distributors' margin of oil marketing company (included in prescribed price) is Rs2.58 while dealers' commission (included in prescribed price) is Rs2.35 per litre.

Prescribe price includes ex-refinery, import parity prices, petroleum levy, distributors and dealers margin.

Ogra had also given the price build-up when E-10 rate was fixed at Rs63.50 per litre on December 26, 2009 and at that time the motor gasoline rate was fixed at Rs66 per litre. On December 26, the government was pocketing Rs8.76 per litre as general sales tax and petroleum levy was Rs8.86 per litre on sale of E-10 through retail outlets and Rs10.93 per litre for direct sale to consumers by oil companies. Distributors' margin was Rs2.36 per litre.

However, when Ogra had issued the price notification for E-10 on January 31, 2010 at Rs68.71 and on February 28 at Rs68.07 per litre, the authority had not issued any price build-up. The petrol rate on January 31 and February 28 were fixed at Rs71.21 and Rs70.57 per litre.

A PSO official said preparations were ready to resume the E-10 sale at around 38 outlets in Sindh on April 4 in the first phase covering mainly Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Larkana, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Sehwan, Jamshoro and Tando Adam.

In the second phase, sale would be started in Punjab but there is no specific time for launching the low cost fuel in the big province.

The PSO in January 2010 had launched E-10 at 16 outlets in Karachi, two in Hyderabad and one each in Larkana and Nawabshah.

A PSO official had informed Dawn on February 19 regarding efforts to restore sale and working out of price mechanism formula by Ministry of Finance and PSO. However, despite notification issued regarding fixing of E-10 price at Rs68.07 per litre on February 28, 2010, the PSO which had already suspended the sale earlier in February, also did not resume sale even in March.

E-10 sale had been facing problems owing to increase in prices of ethanol.