Market gas prices could come to Mexico in January

Free-market gasoline prices could be coming to Mexico as early as January 2017, a year earlier than planned.

An undersecretary in the Finance Secretariat said this week that a proposal will be made to Congress by September 8 at the latest that the January 1, 2018 date for the liberalization of gas prices be moved forward to the beginning of 2017 instead.

It would be the second change to the timetable for the opening of the gasoline market, a major shift in energy policy that was part of the federal administration’s energy reform package.

Gas companies have been allowed to import fuel themselves since last April when the timeline was changed, moving the date forward by nine months.

But as the Mexico head of Gulf Oil said a month later, it didn’t make much sense for petroleum companies to import fuel if government continued to set the prices. Sergio de la Vega predicted that the government might discontinue doing so earlier than expected.

If Congress goes along, the fuel price increase announced last week, which takes effect Thursday, could be the last to be dictated by authorities.

Magna gasoline will rise slightly by two centavos to 13.98 per liter. Diesel wil increase by 3.36% to 14.45, while premium gasoline will remain unchanged.

The Finance Secretariat said the price adjustments followed a recovery in oil prices.

Electricity rates are also going up in September, with industrial, commercial and high-consumption domestic consumers seeing the biggest hikes.

Industrial tariffs will be between 6.5 and 8.4% more than last September, while the commercial sector will pay between 8.6 and 9.4% more.

High-use domestic customers, charged under the tariff known as DAC, for doméstico de alto consumo, will see their electricity costs rise 9.3% compared to a year earlier

Source: mexiconewsdaily.com

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