The price of fuel will go up next week. The Regulatory Authority of Public Services (Aresep) approved this Friday an increase of ¢ 29 in each liter of super gasoline, of ¢ 19 in plus 91 and of ¢ 50 in diesel.
This increase corresponds to the monthly request made by the Costa Rican Petroleum Refinery (Recope), the entity stated that the increase is made necessary by “the tariff lag due to COVID-19, since the departure of inventories was very slow, causing that these products were sold at a lower price than the one purchased”.
New prices
With this approved increase, the price of each liter of super gasoline will go from ¢ 570 to ¢ 599 and that of the plus 91 from ¢ 551 to ¢ 570. In the case of diesel, the increase is greater (¢ 50) so its cost per liter will remain at ¢ 495 (currently it costs ¢ 445). These prices will take effect the day after the Aresep resolution is published in the official newspaper La Gaceta.
Necessary increase
According to the tariff methodology approved for Recope, a price adjustment must be requested on the second Friday of each month and -in addition- every two months a price lag or differential is reviewed, which was carried out on this occasion.
This “arises from the slowness with which domestic sales prices are indexed with international prices; which means that, day by day, the import price (costs) is different from the sale price (income) ”, explained Recope.
In addition to this, aspects such as the devaluation of the Colón against the dollar (currency used as payment for hydrocarbon purchases) are taken into account. To calculate the price differential, “the daily differences between the cost of the average liter of fuel in the tank, minus the international reference price in force by resolution on each sale day of the month understudy” are taken into account and for this request, it was made the update of the lag for May and June.
