Price of diesel up nine per cent

The price of diesel has gone up by 9.2 per cent and now costs 34.4c per litre, while the price of kerosene has increased by 11.9 per cent to 16.9c per litre, the government said yesterday, blaming the hikes on the international price of oil.

The price of petrol has increased marginally. Unleaded petrol went up by 0.5 per cent to 38.8c per litre while lead replacement petrol (LRP) went up by 0.4 per cent to 41.8c a litre.

The price of light cycle oil - which is used mostly by commercial entities to mix different types of oil - will increase by 1.8c a month over the next three months.

Despite increases in the price of fuel used by Enemalta to generate electricity, the government said that for this year the expense would be shouldered by the company and not passed on to the consumer. It said estimates pointed to a Lm4 million rise in costs for the company.

The government said that over the past three months the international price of diesel had increased by 21.3 per cent but because of rate of exchange fluctuations, it was effectively a rise of 19.89 per cent.

In the past three months the international price of unleaded petrol increased by five per cent. However, due to the weakness of the US dollar, the increase in the cost of unleaded petrol was of 3.78 per cent over three months.

The international price of kerosene increased by 19.3 per cent in the past three months, which translated to 17.93 per cent because of the rate of exchange.

The prices of oil products are adjusted every quarter to reflect the international prices of the previous three months.

The government said the prices of fuel have been increasing continually since September 2001 and since then oil has been sold locally according to international prices and not according to the price paid for it by Enemalta.

The government said it was aware that oil price fluctuations were exploited politically by the opposition and by the commercial sector as an excuse to lobby for protectionism. However, it said, the price increases did not only affect Malta but the whole world, in some places harder than in Malta.