Paschalides ‘time to cut petrol prices’

COMMERCE Minister Antonis Pachalides has urged oil companies to cut the price of petrol at the pump after being handed a report documenting falling global fuel prices.
“According to the report I have just received, a decrease of up to 2.5 cents per litre for 95 Octane, the most common type of petrol, would be completely justified,” Paschalides said.
Contacts were already underway with oil companies, and Paschalides said he was ‘confident’ that they would respond to the call.
Pachalides was choosing his words carefully, perhaps wary of challenging oil companies after a standoff last April when petrol stations across the island shut shop in response to a government-imposed price cap.
The closure sparked a mad rush for fuel until Paschalides relented and cancelled the cap.
The minister said yesterday that if the global downward trend in fuel prices continued, there could soon follow further – and larger – decreases in the prices of other fuel types.
“We shall be monitoring the situation closely, and advising the interested parties [the oil companies] to act accordingly,” Paschalides added.
“We expect them to announce a new price list for Octane 95 today [yesterday] or tomorrow,” he said.
Reports yesterday said that Petrolina headquarters had instructed petrol stations to cut Octane 95 by up to 2.5 cents today, and it remained to be seen whether the other companies would follow suit.
According to the Commerce Ministry’s latest retail pricewatch, unleaded 95 petrol ranged from 1.019 to 1.057 cents a litre; unleaded 98 from 1.039 to 1.083 cents a litre; diesel from 0.959 to 1.019 cents a litre; heating oil from 0.745 to 0.820 cents a litre; and kerosene from 0.649 to 0.818 cents a litre.
The price watch is published and updated on the Commerce Ministry’s website, at www.mcit.gov.cy. For information on fuel prices, or to lodge a complaint, consumers may also reach the ministry’s Competition and Consumer Protection Agency by dialling 1429.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.