Despite drop in price: Govt keeps petroleum products prices unchanged

ISLAMABAD: The government on Tuesday decided to keep the petroleum prices unchanged at home for the first half of December 2021.

In the international market, the oil prices (Global Benchmark Brent) have tumbled from $84.52 per barrel recorded on 9 November to around $68.8 per barrel on Tuesday, showing a decline of around 15.7 dollar per barrel in the last three weeks. The major reason behind the reduction was the emergence of a new variant of Covid-19. On Tuesday alone, it was down by around 6 percent, as experts cast doubt on the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines against Omicron, the new variant.

It may be noted that on 15 November too, Prime Minister Imran Khan had turned down the Oil and Regulatory Authority’s proposal to increase the petroleum products’ prices and announced that the prices would remain unchanged till the end of November.

On November 4, the government had announced a massive increase in POL prices; petrol went up by Rs8.14 per litre, diesel Rs8.14 per litre, kerosene Rs6.27 per litre, and light diesel oil by Rs5.72 per litre.

The current ex-depot price of petrol is Rs145.82 per litre, high-speed diesel Rs142.62 per litre, kerosene Rs116.53 per litre, and LDO Rs114.07 per litre. It was decided that these prices would remain unchanged. The consumers in remote areas use Kerosene for cooking purposes, where gas is not available. LDO is being consumed by flour mills and a couple of power plants.