Global oil prices on the rise again

The Mia Mottley administration is again facing pressure to shield consumers from the burden of high gas prices, as local stakeholders brace for further increases in the months ahead.

Minister of Small Business, Energy and Commerce Kerrie Symmonds explained that whilst discussions are continuing with private sector officials, recent statistics suggest that the prices of key goods remained on par or below pre-COVID levels.

He however could not say the same for petroleum products as the global price continues to fluctuate.

“I think everybody is looking at what the options are before the Government and watching the situation, because while gas prices were going up all the time, they then started to come back down. They then started to stabilize, but I suspect that we will have to watch what happens with the prices worldwide, because as you know, they are rising again,” Minister Symmonds told Barbados TODAY after officially reopening the Payne’s Bay Fish Market.

As recently as Tuesday, international industry giants, including British Petroleum (BP) warned that gas markets would remain high in the coming months and only return to normal “probably by the summer of next year”. Other stakeholders have warned of the “high probability” of oil reaching $100 a barrel and BP predicts that both oil and gas production over the fourth quarter of the year would be higher than the third quarter.

Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Spokesman on Energy and the Environment Paul Gibson condemned the administration’s refusal to reduce the taxes on gas as a clear indication of the Government’s “disconnect from the pain, hurt and suffering of thousands of Barbadians”.

He is also calling for a reduction of gas prices by at least 20 cents per litre. Gasoline currently retails at $3.95 per litre, diesel at 3.16 and kerosene at $1.38.

“The minister continues to fiddle and dilly dally using rhetoric around this urgent matter that suggests that the fault of the high gas prices lies squarely on the shoulders of gas station owners,” Gibson told Barbados TODAY.

“We in the DLP know the minister has the capacity to immediately lower that gas price without hurting the earnings of the Barbados National Oil Company (BNOCL) but he continues to stall. No one will want to see him or hear him if he continues with all the talk but no action to lower these prices,” the DLP spokesman added.

Drawing a link between gas prices and high food prices, Gibson noted that citizens are feeling the pressure as businesses pass on the new costs.

“All have seen the astronomical profits being made by BNOCL. It has achieved the objective of capturing millions in the tax net in a very successful way. By now, efforts would have been made to immediately adjust the prices of petroleum products particularly gasoline, if the Government cared,” said Gibson.

“It is time for this minister to get serious and to reduce the suffering of Barbadians and to listen to the plight and the pain being experienced by so many. It is time to listen to the people’s pain and lower these high prices placed on the people by this Government,” he further urged.

Minister Symmonds however insists that the findings of a comprehensive assessment of price increases across the board were in the hands of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA).

He insisted that while the cost of some commodities had increased, there were hardly any instances where prices had climbed beyond pre-covid levels.

“When you look at it over an 18 to 24-month period, you realise that prices had gone down during COVID, then after the economy reopened, they started to climb back, but they had not surpassed what they were before COVID. So what we were seeing largely was movement almost going back to what it was in pre- COVID times,” Symmonds maintained.

kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb