The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) Ghana has projected that in the coming weeks, Ghanaians could buy fuel at the pumps at Ghc9.00.
This, COPEC says is highly dependent on the escalation or otherwise de-escalation of the brewing tension between Ukraine and its neighbour, Russia.
Speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at COPEC said with Russia being among the top suppliers of crude on the international market, their conflict with Ukraine could easy derail supply. This would lead to increased demand for the limited supply of the product on the market.
With a barrel of crude selling a little under 100 dollars, Mr. Addae projected that this could easily be pushed past the 100-dollar mark due to the conflict.
“Russia is among the top 5 oil-producing countries in the world. They produce about 10.5 million barrels a day amounting to 11 per cent of the total production of oil in the world. Russia is also the net exporter of gas to Europe,” he said.
“Prices could go higher than anticipated because as Russia initially agreed to cease fire and have peace talks with Ukraine and U.S. Just days ago, Russia has moved its military to some border towns so if this invasion does not cease and Ukraine has also prepared itself to face Russia, then it means that the price of crude, as we anticipated that would go to 100 dollars per barrel could even go higher to 120-130 dollars per barrel. If this happens, it will have a very hard effect on the prices of fuel, especially at the local level”.
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“Recently, at the pumps, we are buying around Ghc7.99 and even with that, we are having an international price of 93 dollars per barrel. If we should cross the 100-dollar mark, coupled with the current cedi depreciation, this would push our prices higher,” Mr. Addae added.
A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
