PTT’s contribution to oil fund not a big help, says Korn
Kla Party leader Korn Chatikavanij said on Wednesday that the 3-billion baht pledged by PTT Plc to the oil fund would not help bring down oil price sustainably.
Korn, a former finance minister, was commenting on the resolution of the PTT board to contribute 1 billion baht per month to the oil fund for three consecutive months so that the government would have enough cash to continue to provide oil subsidies.
Korn said the Energy Ministry had claimed earlier that it would receive contributions of 24 billion baht from refineries but it has got only 3 billion baht so far.
“The 3 billion baht is far below the 24 billion the energy minister boasted the government has received,” Korn said.
“But doing just this is not the final solution to expensive oil prices. I hope this was the first step towards changes to oil price structure to reduce the burden on the people.”
Korn reiterated that the structural price of oil could be changed by telling oil refineries to reduce their gross refining margin, which was at least 3 baht per litre higher than what it should have been.
“The market price of petrol is also two times higher than what it should have been. If these two factors are reduced, people will get cheaper oil immediately,” Korn said.
Korn had earlier slammed refineries for making huge gains from gross refining margin of up to 8 baht per litre. But the refineries issued a joint statement denying that their margin was that high.
