- Fuel Prices Expected to Hold Steady for First Half of September 2023, Says IES Projection
- Slowed International Movements and Stable Exchange Rates Contribute to Price Stability
Fuel consumers can breathe a sigh of relief as the Institute for Energy Security (IES) projects that fuel prices will remain unchanged for the initial two weeks of September 2023.
This forecast is anchored in a combination of factors, including a notable deceleration in international movements of petroleum products and a cedi that holds firm against the U.S. dollar, observed during the second-pricing window of August 2023.
Intriguingly, the latest statistics from the Standard & Poor (S&P) Platt platform revealed shifting dynamics in the pricing of various finished petroleum products during the preceding window.
Gasoline, or petrol, underwent a trade value increase from $967.29 to $989.48 per metric tonne. Gasoil, commonly known as diesel, experienced a more modest change, with prices moving from $901.73 to $912.68 per metric tonne.
Simultaneously, the price of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) saw an upward shift from $547.52 to $557.05 per metric tonne. These fluctuations translated into price hikes of 2.29% for gasoline, 0.13% for diesel, and 1.7% for LPG, respectively.
The IES’s meticulous scrutiny of the foreign exchange (forex) market spotlighted the Ghana cedi, which exhibited a marginal depreciation against the U.S. dollar, shifting from ¢11.39 to ¢11.45 over the past fortnight.
This slight devaluation represented a 0.52% dip in the Ghana cedi’s value during the analyzed period.
In the domestic fuel arena, the second pricing window of August saw the cost of local petroleum products ascending by 5% for diesel and 3.90% for petrol.
Drawing from a random sampling of price data from various Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) over the span of two weeks, the IES ascertained that the nationwide average prices per liter stood at ¢13.02 for petrol, ¢12.85 for diesel, and ¢13.14 per kilogram of LPG.
On the international stage, Brent Crude, a key global oil benchmark, achieved a sale price of $84.48 per barrel on August 28, 2023, with an average barrel price of $84.16. A significant contributing factor to this situation is China’s ongoing property crisis, a predicament that has cast a shadow over market risk appetites and ignited concerns about the nation’s economic vitality.
Despite these apprehensions, oil consumption data from China presents a contrary perspective, indicating that fears of a pronounced dip in global demand might be unwarranted.
