The Sunday News
Harare Bureau
FUEL prices will continue dropping in the coming weeks as brent crude oil on the world market plummet, a Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) official has said.
Zera chief executive officer, Engineer Gloria Magombo told our Harare Bureau last week that, “We are happy that the regulatory cap prices of blend (petrol) decreased from the previous levels of US$1,27 to US$1,24 per litre while the diesel price has fallen to US$1,00 per litre from US$1,05 in February.
“Both diesel and petrol prices will fall further due to the continued decrease of crude oil on the global market,” she said.
Engineer Magombo said the decrease in fuel prices would reduce the import bill and improve the cost of production hence goods and commodities are likely to decrease in the near future.
In the past two years, crude oil prices have been nose-diving. From 10 January to 22 January this year, crude oil fell from US$35 to US$28 per barrel.
Zera said the drop of prices recorded in recent weeks was the lowest in the past 11 years.
“Currently, Zera commissioned the Petroleum Sector Pricing Study in order to review and update the current pricing models.
“We shall continue to monitor all the service stations to comply with the new price review of the fuel and we expect prices to continue falling for the good of our people,” she said.
She said the current pricing model was based on free on board (FOB), Government levies and taxes, storage and handling plus margins for wholesalers and retailers summarised in Statutory Instrument (SI) 80 of 2014 which has been updated with SI 20 and 100 of 2015.
The review on fuel pricing shows that the average profit made by fuel dealers off every litre of either diesel or petrol was six cents.
A recent research drew comparisons among 10 regional countries neighbouring Zimbabwe, namely Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Swaziland.
The research showed that the average petrol and diesel price per litre is US$0,92 and US$0,85 respectively, lower than the current local prices.
It also revealed that Zambia’s average fuel prices for petrol and diesel were $0,89 and $0,77, Mozambique US$1,04 and US$0,81, Malawi US$1,13 and US$1,16 Botswana US$0,75 and US $0,71, and South Africa US$0,80 and US$0,65 respectively.
