Anisul Islam Noor :The government has finally cut petrol and octane prices by Tk 10 while diesel and kerosene by Tk 3 per litre in line with their drastic price fall in the international market.The new rates of petroleum products became effective from midnight Sunday. The Energy Ministry issued a gazette notification in this regard in the evening.As per the new price slabs, a litre of diesel and kerosene will cost at Tk 65 instead of Tk 68 while a litre petrol will cost at Tk 86 instead of Tk 96 and octane will cost at Tk 89 instead of Tk 99.Earlier, the Energy Ministry cut the price of furnace oil by Tk 18 per litre to Tk 42 from Tk 60 following the Cabinet decision.Ministry sources said that the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will make profit from the sale of petroleum products despite the downward adjustment in fuel prices.”BPC will make a profit of Tk 25 from the sale of per litre petrol, Tk 20 from per litre octane and Tk 17 from per litre diesel and kerosene and Tk 10 from furnance oil. The drastic fall in petroleum products in the global market will help the BPC to sustain huge profit from its fuel trading,” a senior Energy Ministry official told The New Nation on Sunday, requesting not to be named.The BPC was allowed to repay its loans and recoup the losses it had incurred between fiscal 1999-2000 and 2014-15. Oil prices in the international market have been falling since 2014. But, the in an apparent rigid stance did not lower the domestic oil prices to help state-runs BPC to make profit and flourish.Such a stance by the government, however, drawn countrywide criticism with business leaders and consumer rights groups blamed it for eying lofty profit at the cost of people’s sufferings. After months of criticism over high oil price despite an international plunge, the government last month decided to lower fuel prices with Cabinet endorsed the cut. Oil prices dropped to as low as $27.65 a barrel in January this year before rebounding recently to $40 a barrel, putting further pressure on the government to lower domestic fuel prices.BPC imported around 5.80 million tonnes of petroleum products, crude and refined oil combined, in FY 2015, up 9.43 per cent from the previous year’s 5.30 million tonnes.It imports around 92 per cent of the country’s overall oil requirement, with the remaining is imported by private sector.The petroleum corporation, which never attained profit over the past 14 years since FY 2002, has already bagged a profit worth around Tk 52.68 billion (provisional) in FY 2015, according to officials.
