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Another
Gas Hike Around the Corner; ¢27
Colones This Time
Get ready for another round of
gasoline price increases. This
time it will be ¢26 colones a
litre for super, ¢27 colones for
regular and ¢39 for diesel, this
on the heels of a whopping
increase of ¢51 colones a litre
for super and regular that went
into effect last Saturday.
The new price increase, when
approved, will see the price of
a litre of super go from the
current ¢526 to ¢552, regular
from ¢504 to ¢531 and diesel
from ¢344 to ¢378.
The increase was requested by
the Refinadora Costarricense de
Petroleo (Recope), basing the
request on the rising price of
international crude.
For the new prices to take
effect, the request has to be
first approved by the Autoridad
Reguladora de Servicios Públicos
(Aresep) and the published in
the official government
publication La Gaceta. And that
is the good news.
Due to the change of government
on May 8, a new "regulador" has
yet to be appointed by the
Legislative Assembly and is not
expected for at least three or
four more weeks. During this
process, the Aresep is without a
"regulador" and no approval can
be given until a new regulator
is in place and then it will
take some time for public
hearings, which can take up to
15 days and the mandatory five
days for publication of the
approval.
In effect, the new prices will
not be felt at the pump until
the middle to the end of June.
Costa Rica already holds the
honour of having the highest
gasoline prices in Central
America and unless the new
government of Oscar Arias is
successful in negotiation a
better oil deal with Venezuela,
that distinction may be held for
some time.
During these last few days a
noticeable change could be seen
on Costa Rican roads as many are
preferring to leave the car at
home more and use public
transportation. Rush hour
traffic on Monday and Tuesday
was lighter than usual,
especially for the day before
and after pay day.
In addition, the Asociación
Costarricense de Expendedores de
Combustible (the gasoline
retailers association) reported
sales as low as 30% from normal
during the last few days. One
possible reason is that many
drivers filled up before the
Saturday ¢51 colones increase.
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