Government Reduces Petrol and Diesel Prices on OGRA’s Recommendation

Finally, some good news for Pakistan this weekend. In a world of increasing taxes and price hikes, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) suggested to decrease fuel prices and the government has approved the recommendations. OGRA, on Thursday, submitted a summary to the petroleum division suggesting that the petrol price should be reduced by Rs. 2 per liter starting from September 1. The summary further refers to other petroleum products whose prices should be decreased and readjusted as well.

OGRA had suggested that prices of diesel should be reduced by Rs. 6 per liter, kerosene by Rs. 0.3 per liter and light diesel oil (LDO) by Rs. 0.7 per liter for the month of September. The regulatory authority had sent the summary to the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum Division, which then recommended the revision in oil prices. Subsequently, after approval from the Prime Minister, the fuel prices were changed as follows:

Product	Existing Prices	New Prices	Increase/(-)Decrease
High Speed Diesel (HSD)	112.94	106.57	-6.37 (5.6%)
Petrol (MS 92 RON)	95.24	92.83	-2.41 (2.5%)
Super Kerosene Oil (SKO)	83.96	83.50	-0.46 (0.55%)
Light Diesel Oil (LDO)	75.37	75.96	0.59 (0.78%)

 

The new prices will be applicable from today, that is September 1st 2018.

Earlier, OGRA recommended to increase prices last month by a similar margin, hiking high-speed diesel price by Rs 2 per liter, petrol by Rs 2.50 per liter, kerosene by Rs 5 per liter and light diesel oil by Rs 6 per liter. The caretaker government did not go through with OGRA’s recommendation.

It should be noted that the last major increase was back in July this year, when the petrol’s price was increased by Rs 7.54 per liter, diesel by Rs 14 per liter, but the Supreme Court took notice of abnormally high fuel prices back then, prompting the government not to increase prices any further.