New bill to cut non-essential costs from fuel prices: energy minister
Oil companies will no longer be able to burden consumers with brokerage fees
A new bill will be enacted to prevent oil refiners and distributors from passing on non-essential costs to consumers via fuel prices, Energy Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga said on Tuesday.
Pirapan said oil companies currently burden consumers by incorporating brokerage fees and other costs not related to oil acquisition when they calculate retail prices.
Pirapan, who is also a deputy prime minister, was speaking to reporters at Government House after chairing a meeting of the committee tasked with introducing a system to maintain oil reserve stability.
Pirapan said the bill being drafted by his ministry would prohibit oil companies from adding extraneous costs when calculating retail prices. It would ensure retail prices were based solely on the cost of raw materials, refining and transportation, he added.
The current system has no law to govern fuel-price calculations, Pirapan said, meaning consumers could be shouldered with brokerage fees and other extraneous costs.
“Currently, we don’t know the real cost because [oil companies] also add non-essential costs to fuel prices and these costs became a burden on the people,” he said.
He added that the meeting studied oil reserve models used by Russia and Laos.
He said his ministry would set up an Office of National Oil Reserve to boost the national oil reserve from its current duration of 25 days to up to 90 days.
