9:00:06 AM | 20/10/2008
State-owned Vietnam National Petroleum Corp (Petrolimex), the biggest petroleum distributor in Vietnam, has decided to slash domestic gasoline A92 retail price by VND500/liter or 3.03 per cent to VND16,000/liter and diesel oil by VND300/liter or 1.93 per cent to VND15,300/liter, Deputy General Director Vuong Thai Dung said.
The price cut decision, effective from 8:00 am on October 17, is in line with the plunge in the global oil price to only US$69.85/barrel October 16 in New York for delivery November, the lowest since August 23 of 2007 regardless of OPEC’s announcement to cut crude oil output, the VnExpress daily reported.
This is the fourth gasoline price cut since the rocket of 31.05 per cent to VND19,000 (US$1.15)/liter of gasoline A92 July 21 this year, market watchdogs said.
The Military Petroleum Company (Mipeco) will apply the same price reduction as Petrolimex from 9:00 am October 17, the daily quoted General Director Vuong Dinh Dung as saying.
Other major petroleum importers have taken no move.
Price of gasoline A92 closed at US$73.3/barrel on the October 16 afternoon in Singapore and hit US$76/barrel when arriving in Vietnam. With such low imported price, a liter of gasoline A92 should be priced at VND10,000/liter in Vietnam after deducting tax and related fees, and at VND12,000/liter after extracting VND700/liter for agents and refunding VND1,000 to the State budget, the VnExpress daily reported.
Some analysts attributed the modest gasoline price decrease to massive stockpile in accordance with the regulation to ensure petrol reserve within 30 days, and efforts to recover loss worth VND3 trillion (US$181.81 million) in gasoline trading from 2007 by July 21 this year by traders.
Under a recent decision by the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance, petroleum trading companies have been allowed to decide selling prices of petrol products from September 16 of this year. (VnExpress, VietNamNet)
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