Secretary, Petroleum Ministry, Imtiaz Qazi, said on Wednesday that price upper cap of Saudi Aramco Contract Price (CP) for LPG should be removed to encourage import, leading to availability of product that would result in reducing LPG prices in the country. In a briefing to National Assembly Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources, he said "We will have to scrap the upper cap of CP for LPG price".
The Managing Director (MD) of Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC), Naeem Malik, said that the government should encourage import of LPG to ensure availability of the product in the country. "Importers fail to import LPG due to low price in the local market," he said, adding that let the market forces compete. He said that LPG marketing companies and distributors would have to ultimately reduce their margins to compete if market forces were allowed to determine the LPG price.
Iqbal Z Ahmad, representing JJVL and LPG marketing companies' association, said that 68000 tons LPG was imported last year which accounted for 8 to 10 percent of local production. "It is unfair to increase the price of LPG for the sake of ten percent at the cost of 90 percent," he said, adding that there is no customs duty on import of LPG and many facilities are available to the importers. He said that JJVL kept low producer price to facilitate the consumers, and imported LPG would ultimately result in higher cost of product.
Member of the Committee Barjees Tahir, who has been convenor of subcommittee on LPG, said that the issue of LPG price should be taken up in main committee. "Ogra has failed to maintain control over prices of LPG, and it is only dealing with oil and natural gas issues," he added.
Comments
Comments are closed.