Pricey petrol - Gas prices keep rising

Chad Bryan, Gleaner Writer

As the current exchange between the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (Petrojam) and the Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (MSME) Alliance continues, fuel prices keep going up. The MSME is the latest organisation to complain publicly about high gas prices. MSME member and Jamaica Solar Energy Association President Roger Chang, is asking that Petrojam make its pricing mechanism public.

Rising gas prices are a consistent feature of Jamaica, in the past punctuated by riots as government taxes caused a sudden spike, which aroused public ire.

One of those riots was in January 1979 when, under the Michael Manley-led People's National Party (PNP) government, fuel prices increased from $3 to $3.20 a gallon for premium gasolene and from $2.85 to $ 3.10 a gallon for regular.

In January 1985, yet another year
started with increased fuel prices ande riots, this time under the
Edward Seaga-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government. Five people were
killed in the violence that ensued after a $1.91 increase, prices
moving from $8.99 a gallon to $10.90 a gallon for premium
gasolene.

In April 1999, with the PNP back in control
under the leadership of PJ Patterson, demonstrators took to the streets
to protest a hike in fuel tax from $1.55 a gallon to
$2.

On Friday, Petrojam's website listed E10 (87)
gasolene at $107.5228 and E10 (90) at $109.1787, prices to which dealers
would add their margins.

The increase in fuel prices
is an all too common occurrence which motorists continue to grapple with
at the pumps as, since recently, the cost of fuel went up by $2.00 to
cost $107.52 for a litre of E-10 87, $109.17 for E-10 90 gasolene and
automotive diesel, which has gone up by $1.11 to sell for $ 107.29 per
litre. The earliest figures on the website were $27.4276 for unleaded 87
grade fuel in February 2004, with unleaded 90 going for $28.8704 at
that time.

Cheap petrol
price?

According to The Financial
Gleaner in July 2000, a survey published by the London-based
Economist Intelligent Unit (EIU) would have ranked Jamaica 37th among 74
countries with the cheapest prices for petrol, had it been included in
the survey. At that time, the average price of a litre of unleaded fuel
was $25.50 for the 90 octane and $24.43 for 87
octane.

Those figures were provided by service
stations which were members of the island's seven marketing companies -
Petcom, Shell, National, Epping, Esso, United Petroleum and Texaco - in
Kingston, St James, Clarendon and St Thomas.

Another
increase in gas prices had been registered in 2008 by Petrojam due to
the movement in US Gulf reference prices and devaluation of the Jamaican
dollar in relation to the US dollar. Then, one litre of unleaded 87
octane gasolene was sold for $55.69, while a litre of unleaded 90 octane
gasolene cost $57. 13 and a litre of E10 was at
$53.66.

One of the bigger leaps was in 2005, when
Hurricane Katrina caused disruptions to oil supplies in the Gulf of
Mexico.