The Secretary of Energy (Later) extended the validity of the cap on the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LP) originally implemented in the middle of last year with the aim of curbing the increases observed between May 2020 and May 2021.
The federal agency published in the Official Journal of the Federation (DOF) that the extension will be six months from January 29, 2022.
“The validity of the Emergency Directive for the well-being of the liquefied petroleum gas consumer, published on July 28, 2021 in the Official Gazette of the Federation, is extended for a single occasion and for a period of six months, counted from of January 29, 2022, a situation that must be considered by the Energy Regulatory Commission in terms of article 71 of the General Law of Regulatory Improvement, in order to extend Agreement A/024/2021 until the guideline of emergency”, is detailed in the document.
It should be remembered that on July 28, 2021, it was published in the DOF the “emergency guideline for the well-being of the consumer of liquefied petroleum gas” to establish the bases for the emergency attention of a social and national security program “arising from the damage caused to the consumer of LP gas derived from the advantages excessive and unjustified that from the liberation of the price are obtained in the commercialization and distribution of the fuel”.
Back then the Later observed an increase of 28% in the period from May 2020 to May 2021 in the national weighted average price of LP gas reported by distributors, in addition to a component of regional inequality in the behavior of said prices, for example, in the In the case of Mexico City, in the same period, a price increase of 37% was observed, higher than the national average.
Given this, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that as an extraordinary measure to prevent abuses, a maximum sale price would be established for domestic gas in the face of the monopoly held by five companies in the country, in addition to the creation of the government brand “Gas Welfare”, for the distribution of subsidized fuel.
According to the Later, since this guideline was implemented, the price of LP gas to the final consumer has decreased 15.1%, “compared to the price that would have occurred if the guideline had not been issued.”
The agency stressed that this result “represents an estimated saving of more than 14,000 million pesos for the country’s consumers.”
(With information from Karol Garcia)
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