Fuel prices to go down 24% - IES

The Institute for Energy Security (IES) is forecasting between 16 and 24% drop in the price of fuel on the local market in the first Pricing-window for April 2020.

This is due to the significant fall of 33.36% in the price of Brent crude, coupled with the considerable drop in the prices of petrol (51.29%) and diesel (27.96%) on the international market.

Crude oil prices remain largely below the $30-margin for this window due to a drowning global oil market as a result of unmanageable surplus, as the world’s largest economies lockdown, cutting consumption by 25%.

However, the cedi depreciated by 4.68% against the U.S. dollar in the last two weeks, trading at an average price of GHS5.59.

This is from the previous rate of GHS5.34 recorded in the first Pricing-window of March 2020.

Meanwhile, fuel prices at the pump experienced some 8.8% average reductions across some major Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), as against the National Petroleum Authority’s pronouncement of 15% reduction for the Pricing-window under review.

While Shell (Vivo) reduced petrol and diesel by roughly 4.3%, Goil and Total Ghana shaved-off approximately 11% for petrol and diesel.

Zen Petroleum gave away a whopping 14% for both products to sell at GHS4.25 per litre, thus making it the OMC with the least selling price on the market.

As a result, the national average price of fuel per litre at the pump stands at GHS4.88 and GHS4.90 for petrol and diesel respectively.

Aside Zen Petroleum, Benab Oil, Nick Petroleum, Frimps Oil and Champion Oil were counted by IES Market-scan as some of the OMCs with least-priced fuels on the local market, relative to others in the downstream petroleum sector.