Vietnamese oil traders are likely to increase retail prices of petrol next month as they are suffering big losses following soaring global prices.
“We will not immediately raise the price in early May,” an official from market-dominating Petrolimex said
A representative from Military Petroleum Co. (Mipeco), complained “we are losing VND1,300 on every liter of petrol sold. We wanted to raise the price for a long time, but still have to wait for action from Petrolimex, which holds over 60 per cent of the Vietnamese petroleum market share.”
He said last week’s A92 petrol price stood at US$82 a barrel on Singapore-based trading. “With taxes and fees included, it would be VND12,000 per liter in Vietnam and we are losing at the current retail price of VND11,000 a liter.”
Petec also said that it, as well as small traders, had to wait for pricing decisions from Petrolimex.
Bui Ngoc Bao, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex, said an immediate price rise after May Day is unsound because it is a public holiday.
Under Decree 55, oil traders are allowed to decide the retail price of petroleum products from May 1, 2007.
Vietnam now has 10 oil traders, all State-run, which plan to import 13.2 million metric tons of petroleum products to feed the national energy demand.
In a related development, the government allows financial organizations to provide more loans, which can exceed 15 per cent of their equities, to refined oil importers/traders to facilitate oil import and distribution. (VNExpress)
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