Some Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have adjusted prices of petroleum products at the pumps from July 17, 2023.

TotalEnergies is selling a litre of diesel and petrol at ¢12.45, from its previous price of ¢12.30 pesewas per litre.

Market leader, GOIL, is also selling a litre diesel at ¢12.45, while petrol is going for ¢12.40, from its old price of ¢12.30.

Shell is also selling a litre of diesel at ¢12.45. It was previously selling a litre of diesel at ¢12.30 and petrol at ¢12.40.

This should mean that prices have gone by 10 to 15 pesewas per litre with regard to some of the petroleum products.

Reasons for the increase

The reason for the increase has been mixed.

While Total Energies wants to link to the cost price of the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies, market leader GOIL is attributing it to the slight depreciation of the Ghana cedi to the dollar.

There were initial indications that prices will remain stable at the pumps from July 16 2023. However, the increase has beat industry expectations and projections for the second pricing window for this month of July 2023.

The development could negatively impact inflation going into the coming months.  

However, Joy Business checks with the National Petroleum Authority indicate that the authority disagreed with the OMCs that the price increases at the pumps were due to the depreciation of the cedi. One senior official at the Authority told Joy Business on condition of anonymity that “there hasn’t been any depreciation of the Ghana cedi from the reports of banks that I have seen”.

What are the Bulk Oil Distribution firms saying?

Some of the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies have told Joy Business that the international market prices of finished petroleum products from June 7 to July 11, 2023 pricing window have changed marginally compared to the previous window.

According to the BDCs, these are premiums used in pricing petroleum products from 16th to 31st July 2023.

They also maintained that crude oil prices on the world market within the period rose slightly by about $1.48/barrels per day (2.13%) to about $75.85/bbl. This was largely attributed to a cut in supply by giant oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.

The BDCs have also told Joy Business that  the price of LPG rose slightly this window after falling consistently since the past five windows.

This is despite the fact that prices of global petroleum products were largely affected by the bleak global economic outlook and the rising interest and inflation rates in the US in quarter 2, 2023.

These uncertainties regarding the US debt ceiling bill also accounted for the volatile petroleum product prices in quarter 2, which impacted prices at the pumps locally.