Windhoek
The Ministry of Mines and Energy has announced that fuel pump prices for August will remain unchanged.
According to Mines and Energy Minister, Obeth Kandjoze, oil markets naturally ebb and flow, and are sensitive to potential disruptions of global supply balance in the environment of low surplus production capacity. However, he said, the beginning of July 2015 saw Brent crude oil prices on a steady course, with fewer fluctuations as it was the case the previous month.
“Along with a bit of certainty about traditional suppliers (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria, etc.) a large increase in Libyan crude is expected to hit the market soon. Libyan exports have slowed for several months due to political instability.
US crude production also continues to rise, adding even more oil to the global market.
“Filtered through the local market, the aforementioned events brought about substantial over-recoveries to trigger adjustments of fuel prices at the pump, but it is necessary to plan ahead in times of over-recovery,” explained Kandjoze in a statement issued yesterday.
Kandjoze added that the National Energy Fund has been subsidizing half of the past several increments in fuel prices and it is for this reason that the ministry has decided to keep prices steady so that the over-recoveries would be absorbed into the fund to capacitate it for future subsidies.
“The ministry always supports fuel prices that are kept at the lowest possible level not to disrupt the transportation costs and thus the entire imported commodity price in Namibia,” noted Kandjoze.