The Editor, Sir:

Petrojam has not explained to the motoring public why oil is going down on the world market and our ex-refinery prices are not anywhere in line with that trend. I'll give a few examples.

Since early July, the price of a barrel of oil has fallen by 68 per cent (using the World Trade Index (WTI) prices (same as the so-called 'Gulf Reference Price' by Petrojam)) from US$141.06 on July 1 to US$43.84 on December 16 this year). Now Petrojam's ex-refinery price for the following selected products have fallen from the peak on July 17 to the last listing on December 18.

Unleaded 87 - $78.43 to $49.65 (a 36.7 per cent decrease)

Unleaded 90 - $79.87 to $51.09 (a 36.0 per cent decrease)

Diesel - $87.45 to $54.46 (a 37.7 per cent decrease)

Propane - $49.59 to $17.64 (a 64.4 per cent decrease)

As can be seen, only propane is anywhere close to the trend. Based on my weekly analysis of the data over the past six months, diesel has only seen a significant decrease in the past two weeks.

If you calculate the foreign exchange component which has changed from J$72.23 : US$1.00 on July 17 to J$80.15:US$1.00 on December 16, an overall decrease of 10.9 per cent, then they are still taking the Jamaican motorist for a ride.

Pricing policy

Petrojam needs to explain their pricing policy so that the public can understand why we are being charged at those prices. Is it an indirect tax to the Government (which I think still has shares in Petrojam)?

But even so, the Government is only getting a fixed J$7.00-plus on a litre of petroleum products. We need clear answers, and by the way, there are reports that it is still much cheaper to import finished petroleum products than Petrojam sells to the trade. Since we're doing that with chicken, maybe we need to consider importing most of our finished petrol products!

And motorists, it suits you to shop around when buying petrol. If you have access to the internet, you can check gas station prices in your area by going to http://jamaicagasprices.com.jm.

I am, etc.,

GERALD CAMERON

gerald@dlinkcorp.com

Kingston 19