FinSec says gas prices high because of transport cost

BBN Staff: Financial Secretary Joseph Waight, responding to questions about promised fuel price reductions at the pump, said that the reason why the price drop wasn’t as significant as expected is because Belize imports fuel from several sources.

“Fuel prices are a composite of many things,” Waight told the media this morning. “A lot of it has to do with transportation costs…when we buy fuel from different sources we have to pay different transportation costs,” he added.

Waight said Belize buys fuel from Venezuela as well as Texas in the U.S. and Guatemala at times, which all contribute to the high transportation costs. “We don’t get all our fuel from Venezuela…never did,” Waight clarified, adding that the recent re-arrangement to the Venezuelan agreement was only to ensure the continued supply through PetroCaribe, not to increase the supply. Waight said Belize doesn’t get any Premium fuel from Venezuela and said the prices at the pump depend on world prices.

Three weeks ago Prime Minister dean Barrow promised fuel prices would go down. “By our calculations when that shipment is landed you will see a further decrease in prices to below where the prices were when we had that spike,” Barrow ambiguously said at the time providing no specific estimation in terms of the value of the decrease. Prices at the pump went down in mid-October with Regular fuel dropping only 16 cents and Premium fuel seeing no price change. Diesel also remained the same while kerosene went up by 21 cents.

 

Advertise with the mоѕt vіѕіtеd nеwѕ ѕіtе іn Belize ~ We offer fully customizable and flexible digital marketing packages. Your content is delivered instantly to thousands of users in Belize and abroad! Contact us at mаrkеtіng@brеаkіngbеlіzеnеwѕ.соm or call us at 501-612-0315.

 

© 2017, BreakingBelizeNews.com. Content is copyrighted and requires written permission for reprinting in online or print media. Theft of content without permission/payment is punishable by law.