Prices at the pump set for further fall

Fuel prices are set to decrease by three cents per litre in the coming days, an energy ministry official said on Tuesday.

“It’s expected that in the next few days, either this week or the week after, there will be a price reduction of up to three cents,” head of the consumer protection service Constantinos Karagiorgis told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA).

Karagiorgis added that he hopes the “downward trend of the international fuel prices will continue”.

He conceded, however, that there is uncertainty due to factors such as a potential reduction in oil production “which means we don’t know how the situation will evolve in the next period”.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia and Russia – the world’s biggest oil exporters – announced on Monday that they will further cut supply to boost prices.

But Karagiorgis said that the current phase shows that a price reduction of three cents per litre is expected when the new shipments arrive.

But head of the petrol station owners’ association Savvas Procopiou gave a mixed review of the outlook ahead.

“Our forecast is that prices should decrease slightly because in the past 15 to 20 days the prices in international markets have been moving downwards, but in the last few days this has reversed,” he told CNA.

“If the trend of the past two to three weeks continues then we expect a decrease of at least two to three cents – we follow any prices sent to us wholesale,” Procopiou said.

He added that one company had already lowered its prices by one cent on Tuesday and expects others to follow suit.

The price of petrol and other fuels has been front and centre of the news cycle during the past two weeks as the government decided to scrap the reduced rates of VAT on the products.

On Thursday, just before the VAT was scrapped, it was reported that petrol was set to rise by 8.32 cents per litre and heating fuel by 6.38 cents.

By Saturday, the average fuel prices stood at €1.47 per litre of 95 octane, €1.49 for diesel, and €1.04 for heating oil.