Fuel prices will remain unchanged in the first two weeks of September 2023.

According to a projection by the Institute for Energy Security, this is on the back of the slowed down of international movements of all petroleum products together with a stable cedi against the U.S. dollar in the second-pricing window of August 2023.

“The various finished petroleum products as monitored on Standard & Poor (S&P) Platt platform within the past window exhibited the following dynamics; Gasoline [petrol] traded at $989.48 per metric tonne against the previous $967.29 per metric tonne, Gasoil [diesel] also moved from $901.73 per metric tonne to $912.68, and Liquid Petroleum Gas price moved to $557.05 per metric from $547.52 per metric tonne. These changes led to price effect of 2.29%, 0.13% and 1.7% increase in all 3 products prices; Gasoline, Gasoil and LPG respectively, it said.

IES Economic Desk’s analysis of the foreign exchange (forex) market, over the last two weeks revealed that the Ghana cedi depreciated against the U.S. dollar moving from ¢11.39 to ¢11.45, representing 0.52% depreciation of Ghana cedi over period”, it added.

Local fuel market

The second pricing-window of August, saw prices of domestic petroleum products increased by the following margins; 5% for diesel and 3.90% for petrol.

A simple random sampling of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) price data by the IES over the two weeks put the national average prices per litre of petrol at ¢13.02, ¢12.85 for diesel and ¢13.14 per kilogramme for LPG.

Brent Crude sells at $84

Meanwhile, Brent Crude sold $84.48 per barrel yesterday August 28, 2023 and at an average price per barrel of $84.16.

It is because the world's largest oil importer, China, is experiencing a severe property crisis that has reduced risk appetite across markets and caused serious concerns about the health of its economy.

It is likely to further affect global demand though data from China oil consumption suggests otherwise for which analysts hold the fears are unwarranted.