Importers, consumers, and gas station owners are expecting another rise in fuel prices, even as prices for gasoline, diesel, and heating oil have already risen significantly.
The President of the Gas Station Owners Association, Savvas Prokopiou, told CNA that the government could implement further targeted measures, beyond reducing the excise tax.
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For his part, the Executive Managing Director of Petrolina, Dinos Lefkaritis, told the news agency that Cyprus is in a good position compared to other countries and that profit margins are very low.
Furthermore, the President of the Cyprus Consumers’ Association, Marios Drousiotis, emphasized the need for a heating oil subsidy, calling on the Ministry of Finance to ensure that the subsidy goes exclusively to consumers.
“As for prices, as we have repeatedly stated, the Consumer Protection Service and the fuel import companies are responsible,” the President of the Gas Station Owners’ Association told CNA.
“As gas station owners, we are monitoring the successive price hikes, which, unfortunately, generally affect both our sector and other sectors. Based on experience, we expect a few more increases,” he noted.
“We don’t know exactly how many cents the increases will be, but we’ve seen increases of 1 to 2 cents recently. So, there may still be a few more increases at that level, and we hope to see some corresponding declines in prices,” he added.
When asked whether further intervention by the Ministry of Finance is needed, beyond the reduction in the excise tax, he replied that “In our view, any further intervention should be targeted at vulnerable groups.”
“As for the general population, if the Ministry of Finance were able to do so, there could be an additional general reduction in taxation,” Mr. Prokopiou said.
“We are asking for a formula to be established whereby, when prices rise above a certain level, taxes are automatically reduced to at least 8.33, as they are today,” he concluded.
“The issue of petroleum products is unpredictable. No one can know what tomorrow will bring. Prices may go up, they may go down; something could happen anywhere in the world and affect the petroleum sector,” Petrolina’s Executive Managing Director, Dinos Lefkaritis, told CNA.
As he noted, at the moment “there is an upward trend” in prices.
“We’re seeing in other European countries as well that prices have gone up significantly,” Mr. Lefkaritis said, noting that in several regions of Greece, prices are over two euros per liter.
“In Cyprus right now, we’re doing very well. The prices we’ve managed to achieve and are currently charging come at the expense of our own company, but I believe also of other companies,” he noted.
He emphasized that “our profit margins are very low. At least we, as a Cypriot company, are trying to keep prices as low as possible.”
When asked whether prices rise quickly but fall more slowly, as well as about their relationship to the price of a barrel of Brent crude, Mr. Lefkaritis replied that “In Cyprus, we have nothing to do with Brent or crude oil. There is no refinery in Cyprus, so you can’t say that you’re importing crude oil and the price is 80, 90, or 100 (dollars).”
He clarified that “at this time, Cyprus imports refined products. We shut down the refinery in 2004. We were the only company that opposed the refinery’s closure, but our concerns were not heeded,” he said.
“The price of petroleum products is determined by the refineries that set it, not by Brent or crude oil. Here in Cyprus, we import refined products,” he noted.
“We base our pricing on Platts (i.e., prices for refined petroleum products). Platts has no relation to the price of Brent or crude oil,” he said. He added that “if the refinery in Haifa or Greece imposes an additional price increase, that is what we will pay.”
“From March 1 to today, the price of 95-octane gasoline has risen by 34.8 cents from 1.315 euros. Yesterday, September 17, it reached 1.663 euros,” Marios Drousiotis, President of the Cyprus Consumers’ Association, also told CNA.
As for diesel fuel, he noted that on March 1, it was 1.413 euros per liter, and yesterday, September 17, it reached 1.925 euros, marking an increase of 51.4 cents.
As for heating oil, he said it was 0.95 euros per liter and yesterday reached 1.556 euros, marking an increase of 60.6 cents per liter.
As he noted, the highest prices on record were recorded in mid-July 2022. At that time, gasoline had reached 1.828 euros per liter and diesel fuel 1.989 euros.
He also said that heating oil was at 1.515 euros per liter in July 2022, while “today it stands at 1.556 euros, which is 4 cents above the all-time high. We’ve broken the barrier,” noted Mr. Drousiotis.
“Unfortunately, forecasts for the next two weeks indicate that we will see further increases,” Mr. Drousiotis estimated.
“As consumers, we are asking that heating oil be subsidized under any circumstances and that it receive an additional subsidy through a reduction in the excise tax, because its price is far too high,”, he emphasized.
He also called on the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy “to ensure that the subsidy they decide on for heating oil goes exclusively to consumers and not to gas station owners.”
Explaining his position, Mr. Drousiotis noted that “in April, when gasoline and diesel were subsidized by 8.33 cents, there were 19 gas stations that did not lower their prices at all and 97 gas stations that lowered them by less than 8.33 cents. In other words, part of the subsidy went to gas station owners,” he said.
