Member of the Gas Station Owners’ Syndicate, Georges Brax announced in a statement that “the Central Bank’s decision to raise the exchange rate of the dollar to import gasoline from 21,300 to 22,100 LBP, is the main reason behind the rise in its price which reached 325,000 LBP.

The dollar’s ​​exchange rate approved in the fuel price table, for securing the 15% for the gasoline import, and which importing companies and stations must insure in cash, is calculated according to the prices of parallel markets which has dropped from 28,186 to 27,000 pounds.

Brax said: “The fluctuations in global oil prices led to a drop in the price of a kiloliter of gasoline from $583.27 in the previous table to $574.47 dollars currently, a decrease of 8.80 dollars. As for a kiloliter of diesel, it decreased by $12 from $609 to $597.”

He pointed out that “the decrease in the exchange rate of the dollar calculated in the table according to the parallel exchange markets to 27,000 LBP, led to a 20,500 LBP decrease in the price of a diesel canister to 337,100 LBP, and a 14,900 LBP drop in the price cooking gas bottle to 297,200 LBP because this exchange rate applies to 100% of the price of these two items.

Brax concluded: “As for the coming days, we may witness additional drops in fuel prices if the dollar exchange rate in the Lebanese markets remained stable. Global oil prices are still affected negatively by the Covid-19 comeback, and fears are sparked of economic deflation due to the spread of the Omicron variant. Brax added that this comes in addition to the US President’s decision to pump 18 million barrels of oil from US reserves into global markets, and the weather conditions in the US were not severe, therefore didn’t require fuel for heating. These global oil prices witnessed declines, bringing the Brent price down to $72.