The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE vice president of the Bahamas Petroleum Dealers Association says he expects gas prices to decrease slightly “within the next week or two” due to falling oil costs abroad.

Vasco Bastian told The Tribune yesterday that while he could not predict how much local fuel cost could drop by, he believes Bahamians will experience some gas relief very soon.

He made the prediction based on declining oil prices in the US, which has seen a continued drop over the past two weeks

His comments came just moments before Esso stations confirmed a price drop to $6.98 per gallon, significantly less than the $7.39 cents per gallon in the weeks gone by.

Meanwhile Rubis stations remain at $6.98 per gallon and $6.97 is the price at both Shell and Autoserv.

“We will see gas prices trending down, I believe, a little bit in another couple of weeks because the price of crude oil I see now is starting to go down and with America saying now that they’re going to produce more oil, then we can see the price of oil going down,” Mr Bastian told The Tribune.

“I can’t tell you if it’s five cents or 10 cents but I could tell you that I know probably within the week or two, we would see some positive movement for Bahamian motorists. I believe that based on what I see and based on what I’m privy to, I think in a week or two, we could see some positive movements for Bahamian motorists.

“I think in the meantime, we just need to continue to try and see if those companies that represents the best interests of The Bahamas can make good buying decisions on the future market when it comes to buying gas for this region.”

Fuel prices have soared globally since Russia, the world’s third largest oil producer, invaded Ukraine in late February.

The Davis administration has repeatedly said they were looking at several initiatives to bring relief to both gas operators and consumers.

However, nothing has been announced yet.

On Monday, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis told reporters he believed the key to relief for Bahamians concerning escalating gas prices was linked to the removal of sanctions on Venezuela.

He also said The Bahamas and other small island developing states were agitating for the US government “and the industrial world” to lift the sanctions on Venezuela.

 “As you would have heard me earlier speak about the energy crisis and what we’re doing as Small Island Developing States at these conferences is to have the United States and the industrialised world to remove sanctions in particular for Venezuela, which is now working, that we hope would be a step in relieving the cost of fuel to Bahamians,” Mr Davis said.

“In respect to our meetings with the petroleum dealers we did make some movements during the budget exercise particularly to assist Family Island dealers and we are still working out what else we can do recognising that most of the cost related to fuel is not within our control.”

“What is in our control and which I have been doing is letting our voice be heard about some of the initiatives and policies in some of the industrialised world that is causing the increase in oil. Quite apart from the invasion of Ukraine there are also other issues like the sanctions on Venezuela that impacted the cost of fuel particularly for us. So, if those sanctions are lifted, it helps and so we have been agitating.”

Yesterday, Mr Bastian said the move will benefit The Bahamas “tremendously”.

 “That oil in Venezuela, that’s better than getting our oil now from some of those major oil companies now in Africa or in the Middle East or whatever but you know we get our supplies from the United States but once you see we can get on board of that bandwagon, that can only mean one thing and the price of gas, the price of oil and everything will go down for The Bahamas and the Lesser Antilles and the whole Caribbean market,” he continued.

“That will benefit The Bahamas tremendously - Bahamians, our driving motorist public as well as gas stations and our operators because something like that, once the logistics for that is fine-tuned, you can probably see a 25 per cent reduction in gas cost easily once all of the logistics have been set up and once all of the vessels are ready to go. It’s a smart move and it makes good business sense for The Bahamas. Even right now, the United States is negotiating with that and so I support that.”