The FINANCIAL — The continuing crisis in Japan, third largest consumer of oil, depressed prices of gasoline to below 100 USD per barrel last week which previously stood at 107.88 USD.
Astonishingly none of the Georgian oil importers have cut prices by a single tetri, insisting that as their reserves were purchased at the older prices, until they are realized no price cuts will be provided.
However, a similar explanation should be valid the other way around which, in fact, doesn’t happen. That is, if the price of oil increases then they should keep their prices level considering that the reserves were purchased at a lower price, which would be for future consumption (at least temporarily).
“Most price adjustments largely depend on logistics’ change. So if we bring for example Api fuel from Italy, if the prices change and go down on international markets then it will take around 2 weeks for the adjustment of the decreased price to take effect. So if prices drop significantly then it will be seen sooner at certain companies which have less of a logistic chain while others have more of one. However when others dampen their prices then we have to follow that trend otherwise we lose the trust of our customers,” Soso Phkhakadze told The FINANCIAL during his interview recorded before the crises in the Middle East and Japan.
At the current moment, the price of petroleum reaches 2.30-2.35 GEL (approximately 1.35 USD) in addition there are no price cells (set by the Government) in Georgia which could eliminate such a sudden rise of oil price. In fact, the liberal economic policy let oil importers set prices which are largely dependent on crude oil prices therefore if the price of the latter goes up so has the price of imported oil.
Socar and Wissol agree that to predict the maximum price of petroleum is impossible.
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