Egypt keeps fuel prices unchanged until December

CAIRO – 7 October 2020: Egypt's Fuel Automatic Pricing Committee (FAPC) has decided at its meeting held after the end of September to keep gasoline and diesel prices in the local market unchanged till December.

In a press release, Wednesday, the committee said the per-liter prices of 80-octane, 92-octane, and 95-octane gasoline will be kept at LE 6.25, LE 7.50, and LE 8.50, respectively.

Diesel fuel prices also remained untouched at LE 6.75 per liter.

The committee said that the decision was taken after following up the price of oil worldwide, exchange rates and transportation, operation and production costs.

Last April, Egypt's Fuel Automatic Pricing Committee decided, to decrease the fuel prices slightly by LE 0.25 per liter, following the exceptional circumstances that the global oil markets has been witnessing as a result of the emerging Coronavirus, COVID-19 crises.

The announced new prices to be: LE 7.50 per litre for 92 octane gasoline, down from LE 7.75, LE 6.25 per litre for 80 octane gasoline, down from LE 6.5 and LE 8.50 per litre for 95 octane gasoline, down from LE 8.75.

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 USD against the Egyptian pound, according to the statement.

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.

In October 2019, Egypt's Fuel Automatic Pricing Committee decided to decrease the prices of all three types of petrol products in the local market by 25 piasters per liter to become amid a range of LE6.5, LE7.75, and LE8.75.

Industrial-use mazut price was lowered by EGP 250 per ton, putting the price of the ton at EGP 4,250.

However, later in January the committee decided to maintain the prices of petroleum products for three following months, starting from January until the end of March.

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