Winter departs but LPG price goes up, not down

PESHAWAR, March 31: Distributors of the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the provincial metropolis increased the price of the fuel by Rs5 per kilogram on Thursday. This raise hit the consumers when they were expecting the price of LPG fall as it did in the past with the weather warming up in March. They said the retailers were selling LPG at Rs110 per kilogram the day before but found the price increased to Rs115 per kilogram overnight in Peshawar. LPG Distributors Association provincial president Bakht Munir on the other hand defended the increase in price, citing the increase in the international market as the justification. The LPG sold here had no relation with the local production, he said. "We have been facing serious financial problems owing to ever increasing rates of natural gas. The fresh hike will further worsen the situation," he said and added that dealers were not ready to revise the price but it was their compulsion. Mr Munir said that about one-third of the dealers had quit the trade as their main consumers were drivers of auto-rickshaws but the owners replaced the two-stroke vehicle with four-stroke to save money. Officially, he said, distributors were not allowed to charge more than Rs105 per kilogram for the fuel but it was sold at higher rates. He said that till Thursday its official rate was Rs105 but now it would be revised to Rs110. However, small dealers would sell it at Rs115 in different rural localities. Meanwhile, All Pakistan LPG Distributors chairman Abdul Hadi said that Saudi Aramko raised the price of the commodity by 37 dollars per metric ton a couple of days ago that also led to an increase of Rs3750 per metric ton in its price in Karachi. "Now the dealers will get one metric ton LPG at Rs89,000," he said. Another wholesale dealer said that with the recent increase the price of LPG would be raised by Rs3.75 per kilogram in the wholesale market while the small dealers would charge people more after including transportation charges in the rate. The producers and owners of companies, he said, used to arrange transportation of commodity in the past but now they had stopped doing so and asked the small scale dealers to purchase it in the open market otherwise they would have to afford the charges. He said that the rates had been increased owing to unrest and clashes in different countries of Middle East. He feared that the price would increase further. He said that the price of oil might also go up if crises in oil producing countries were not resolved.