Government freezes prices of all fuels

The Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Mipymes (MICM) announced that the government has decided to maintain the prices of all fuels for the week of December 11 to 17 without variation and will assume the increases of the various products.

In this regard, premium gasoline will be sold at RD$270.10 per gallon, maintaining its price. Meanwhile, regular gasoline will remain at RD$255.50 per gallon.

Also, regular diesel (RD$201.10) per gallon and optimum diesel (RD$219.10) will maintain their prices, and avtur will continue to be sold to the public at RD$180.68 per gallon.

In addition, kerosene will remain at RD$209.80 per gallon, fuel oil #6 will stay at RD$153.64 per gallon, fuel oil 1%S will continue at RD$172.01 per gallon, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) will remain at RD$141.10 per gallon, and natural gas at RD$28.97 per cubic meter will maintain its price.

Ramón Pérez Fermín, vice-minister of Internal Commerce of the MICM, said that the government would assume RD$2.78 per gallon of LPG for this week, thus avoiding transferring this increase to consumers, a provision protected by Decree 625-2011.

The vice-minister explained that among the factors of the international context that have influenced crude oil behavior, the appearance of the omicron variant of the COVID-19 generated a significant drop in oil prices due to the decrease in the expectations of recovery of the world fuel consumption.

Added to this is the disposition of the use of the oil reserves of several countries globally, headed by the United States, which has had a considerable downward impact on prices.

However, Pérez Fermín warned that the International Energy Agency (IEA) report establishes that the reserves of crude oil inventories have slightly decreased, which has impacted the increase of prices, which this Friday were around USD$72 per barrel.

The value of the barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil averaged US$69.33, slightly lower than the previous week’s US$71.72, a situation that is expected to reverse as winter progresses.