The Costa Rican Oil Refinery (Recope) requested this May 14th an increase of up to ¢ 34 in the price of fuels, the sixth consecutive request made by the institution in this regard. If approved by the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep), the increase will be reflected in the first days of June.
The entity delivered the price study and justified in it the modification in the behavior of the international prices of hydrocarbons in the last 15 days, as well as a new rise in the dollar. Since the beginning of the year, the trend of precious in the market has been upward and sustained; what – defends the Refiner – affects at the national level in the cost of gasoline.
The current pricing methodology of the Regulatory Authority establishes that the variation must be calculated on the second Friday of each month by assessing the changes in international costs as well as in foreign currency.
Multiple factors
The first of the elements responds to the global supply and demand of oil and its derivatives, whose variations in recent days are due to operational and capacity problems in refineries, supply insecurity, new technologies for the extraction of raw materials, atmospheric catastrophes, as well as political and military tensions in the main oil-producing areas.
Thus, the international price rose by 6.0% from April to May in the case of super gasoline, 5.9% in gasoline plus 91 and 10.9% in diesel 50. However, the study adds that the colón went from ¢ 613.54 per dollar last month, to ¢ 616.83 in the current one, for a depreciation of ¢ 3.3 which represents a variation of 0.5%.
