DILI, 08 april 2022 (TATOLI)—The National Petroleum and Mineral Authority (ANPM) is recommending three main points to the Government to control the increasing domestic oil price.
The chairman of ANPM, Florentino Soares Ferreira said in the last two months, that world oil prices have been increasing due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Besides being known as a producer of oil, Russia is also the second-largest natural gas producer in the world.
The supply of natural gas from Russia even fulfills 40% of the demand for this commodity on the European continent. “Of course, the conflict has a significant impact on world fuel prices, Timor-Leste also suffers from the impact of currently relying on imported oil.
The chairman of ANPM, Florentino Soares Ferreira, recommends that to control the price of fuel in the TL, three important solutions are mostly required. The points being quick solutions to address the needs of the community’s requirement on fuel price is not stable.
“The solution I see we can take is that the government can reduce taxes on oil so that suppliers don’t have to increase prices and burden the community,” said the Chair of ANPM after attending the Oil and Mineral Seminar at the Dili University Campus, Mascarenhas, this friday.
He added that another way is to provide subsidies because other countries apply it, such as Indonesia, but specifically for TL, it cannot provide subsidies to the entire community, meaning subsidies must be selective.
Selective subsidies are only for those who contribute to the domestic economy such as public transportation, the government can see this to provide subsidies to taxis, buses, and other public transportation, which are commonly used by the community so that they do not have to increase their fares.
“I see that the government has also not given permission to increase the tariff for public transportation, of course, this will have an impact on their income because the price of oil is expensive but the income is not appropriate,” he said.
Even during the beginning of April, several public transportations stopped operating due to the high price of fuel and this greatly affected the people who could use public transportation for their economic needs, school and work.
The long-term solution is that Timor Gap as a state company can provide a modular filtration system so that it can cover fuel needs of around 25% to 30% of the total requirement.
“Slowly we have to free ourselves from importing fuel because if we don’t, the world fuel market price increases then we will also get the effect,” he explained.
The chairman of ANPM also informed that TL is a country that produces oil but this is still crude and cannot carry out its own filtering so it still relies on imported fuel.
“Timor-Leste’s country is not carrying out screening of oil and has not yet got it. Thus, we are still very dependent on imported oil from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and now we know that the price of this oil is world level because of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia which eventually has an impact on the world market,” he said.
He emphasized that ANPM does not regulate fuel prices because this is the effect of the world market, but as a state authority is ready to provide solutions to find a way out, the main decision must be the initiative of the Government and the relevant Ministries.
Florentino added that currently, countries from OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) have their own strategies to be able to solve this problem.
Journalist: José Belarmino De Sá
Editor: Rafy Belo
