Although they ruled out a new increase for the remainder of February, since the Misiones Gas, Public Services and Housing Cooperative Limited (MISCOOPGAS) They made it clear that if in April, the Milei Government moves forward in removing subsidies (as announced by the Secretary of Energy of the Nation, Eduardo Rodríguez Chirillo), the price of the bottle will rise again.
“To date, the State regulates the marketing of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) butane, which is the product inside the 10 kilo bottle. The State today sets the company that divides, the price scheme for the purchase and sale and the percentage subsidy per year. With the market liberalization promoted by the current national government, this entire State regulation scheme will end and prices will be managed in accordance with market values,” said Omar Cabral, president of the MISCOOPGAS Cooperative in a telephone communication. with Online Missions.
Cabral explained that, in the event of eventual deregulation and the removal of subsidies, the sector will begin to govern its costs on the value per ton or also called the Export Parity Price. “The export parity price last month was $418,000 per ton, and currently with this subsidized scheme that is still in force, we are paying $137,000 per ton. So if everything is completely released and all types of subsidies are removed, as they have announced, we would pay $418 thousand per ton,” he explained.
That is, in the month of April, the sector would pay 205% more per ton of fuel to distributors, without the National subsidy. If this percentage is then transferred to the final price, Consumers could pay up to $22,800 for a 10-kilogram bottle, according to calculations from this medium. This without taking into account increases in transportation and other production costs already confirmed.
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Uncertainty in the sector due to a disparate market
“The market today in Argentina is a market with very disparate realities, there are large companies that have a presence at the national level or in very large sectors of the country and then there are local or regional companies that exclusively serve consumption in a province or even a limited sector in the provinces. Therefore, with the liberalization of the market there is a lot of concern about what may come,” Cabral explained.
And he assured that the uncertainty in the sector not only comes from these strong increases in production costs, but also because each company will have to negotiate with the different national suppliers to establish price conditions and purchasing and selling methods.
“Evidently they will be significant changes of great economic and operational effort for us,” he finally stated.
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2024-02-20 00:09:33