Although last December 2021, Ecopetrol announced the implementation of a discount to the price of LP Gas (LPG) that sells to distributors, this measure reached the end of its validity as of yesterday.
(Read: $12 billion costs climate change to productivity).
As a consequence of the decision, according to Gasnova, the Colombian LPG Association, the price ofThe cylinders will increase 39%.
“That will imply an increase in the retail price of gas cylinders, from around 14% to 16%,” he explained. Alejandro Martínez Villegas, president of Gasnova.
In this way, 22% of Colombian households will be affected, which are those that cook with this gas, which corresponds to 12 million people in 1,050 municipalities in the country.
History of hikes
According to Gasnova, the sale price from producers to distributors doubled (2.4 times) during the past year, and it went from $1,041 per kg to $2,456 per kg.
“Faced with this increase and with the purpose that the end user could continue using this essential fuel, the distributors reduced their marketing and distribution margin (gross income) between $300 and $350 kg, during the past year, in a scenario of falling in sales,” the association said.
To this situation, the union attributes the drop in LPG consumption, the which fell by 6.5% from the second half of 2021 until January 2022 (for six months).
Thus, the two LP Gas unions in Colombia, Gasnova and the Colombian Association of Gas Traders (Agremgas), and with this background called for urgent and structural decisions to be made to mitigate the impact that these increases generate in the end user economy as of today.
“One of the actions that would mitigate the permanent rises in prices would be to extend to all departments the consumption subsidies in cylinders for strata 1 and 2, and ethnic communities, for social equity, since it only covers 5 departments: Nariño, Putumayo , Cauca, Amazonas, Caquetá, and San Andrés Islands”, said Felipe Gómez, executive director of Agremgas.
The unions also pointed out that said subsidy is not covering 50% and 40% of the price for the beneficiaries of this program, but only 22% and 18% of the consumption for the strata 1 and 2 respectivelyso it would be necessary to make adjustments in the scheme.
In addition, union leaders warned that the Liquid Fuel Price Stabilization Fund currently has a deficit of $14 billion for highly polluting fuels.
In this way, the associations propose that these resources should be allocated to cleaner energy sources with a significant social impact such as LPG, “which will allow a transition to cleaner energy and provide quality of life to the poorest Colombians,” they said. .
Currently, andl 22% of Colombian households consume this type of gas (cylinder) to cook their food at home.
(Also: Increases in gas cylinders are coming due to the end of the subsidy).
According to data from the unions, at the regional level, the main LPG consumer departments are: Antioquia (with 18% of national consumption), Cundinamarca (11%), Valle del Cauca (9%), Nariño (8%), Bogotá DC (8%), Santander (6%) and Norte de Santander (5%).
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