Vietnam will maintain retail prices of petrol although the global crude oil price for the May delivery has exceeded the US$67 a barrel benchmark to nearly US$70, an official from the Ministry of Finance said.
“It is too early to decide the retail price of gasoline because the world price is very fluctuant,” he said.
The standoff in negotiations on Iran’s unclear program and the fear of over deliveries from Nigeria are key factors leading to the seven-month record high crude oil price, local media reported.
With an import price of around US$77 a barrel of petrol (Singapore trading), oil-trading firms are losing more than VND500 on a liter of petrol, Tran Ngoc Bao, deputy general director of Petrolimex, which is now holding around 60 per cent of the Vietnamese petroleum market.
“Petrolimex is suffering a VND1,400 loss for a liter of diesel oil,” Bao added. “Each day, Petrolimex loses VND23 billion (US$1.45 million), totaling VND300 billion (US$19 million) in the first three months of this year.”
Previously, to ease losses incurred by petroleum-trading companies - all State-run, the Ministry of Finance had scrapped taxes on most petroleum products from April 7 as the world oil price kept rising.
In Vietnam, the Government fixes pump prices of petroleum products, not oil trading companies, which only responsible for importing refined oil to sell in the country.
Most of the losses from sales of petroleum products are compensated from the State Budget.
Last year, the State coffers disbursed VND10,000 billion (US$633 million) for oil products, local media reported.
The current pump price a liter of a RON 95 and RON 92 gasoline are VND9,800 and VND9,500, respectively. A liter of diesel oil now costs VND7,500.
Despite being the sixth largest crude oil producer in Asia, Vietnam has to import most of petroleum products to feed the nation’s energy needs. Vietnam is estimated to import 13 million tons of petroleum products this year.
Youth, Vnexpress
Vietnamese
