Petroleum derivatives' prices to decline in April: Egypt’s Central Bank governor

CAIRO – 30 March 2020: "The prices of petroleum derivatives are expected to be reduced in the quarterly review through the fuel’s automatic pricing mechanism in April," Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Tarek Amer said.

Amer indicated during a phone interview with a TV program that oil prices and the exchange of the dollar have recently fallen significantly at the global level.

The governor of the Central Bank said, "The date for the re-pricing of petroleum products will be at the end of March, and I believe that it will be reduced."

He pointed out that Egypt was targeting to purchase oil by about $11.8 billion of its budget, but due to the spread of the coronavirus around the world, which affected the price of oil, in return, the amount of oil purchase in the budget fell to $7.3billion, marking a a decrease of $4.5 billion.

Egypt has adopted the automatic pricing mechanism since July 2019, aiming to provide flexibility to enable state institutions to provide the best service for all citizens.

The automatic pricing mechanism aims at adjusting the sale prices of some petroleum products in the local market every three months, based on two key determinants in the domestic market, namely Brent Crude Oil price and the change in the value of the US dollar against the Egyptian pound.

These two key determinants come beside other fixed charges and costs, which are being adjusted annually in September after the approval of the previous fiscal year budget by the Central Auditing Organization.