The Head of the Syndicate of Gas Station Owners Fadi Abu Chakra said in an interview that the price of gasoline would drop below 300,000 LBP due to the drop in the price of oil globally and the decline in the dollar exchange rate locally.

He called on the Minister of Energy and Water Walid Fayyad to “increase the royalty fees of stations and distributors, because they always bear the consequences of the crisis and have large operational expenses from workers’ salaries, generators, and petrol pumps machine repairs.”

Abou Chakra hoped that the Minister of Energy would respond to their demands or else they would take further measure. He hoped that “the royalties would be equal to the stations’ expenses so that they would not be forced to close due to the drop in sales by 50% and the high cost of expenses that exceeded the stations’ capacity.”

In response to a question, he expected that “the coming weeks will witness a decrease in the price of gasoline if the global oil price and the dollar exchange rate continue to decline.”