It all lies in the ‘molecule’
On March 8, the price of the molecule closed at 18 pesos, a day later it reached 17.58, but before the pandemic it was at 12.50 pesos per liter, so the increases are related to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, explained Alejandro Montufar, CEO of PETROIntelligence.
At service stations, prices vary according to other factors such as the distance from the shopping market, the way it is transported, that is why there is so much variety at the gas stations of the different municipalities, explained the specialist.
Without the stimulus from the Treasury, the price would be more than six pesos expensive, why? Because given the increase in the prices of the molecule, the authority reduces the fees charged to the IEPS tax in the final price.
How much would they cost without stimulus?
In the absence of the stimuli, the average price of regular gasoline at the national level it would be 27.55 pesos, instead of 21.19 pesos; in Premium of 27.65 pesos, instead of 23.15 pesos, and in diesel of 29.27, instead of 22.64 pesos”, explained the CEO of PETROIntelligence.
For example, for this week the IEPS rate on Magna gasoline was reduced to 100%, this means that he stopped charging 5.49 pesos for each liter sold, but not there for support, because in addition to this, he gave for the first time, a stimulus of 0.8716 pesos per liter to importers and refiners, for which it is failing to collect 6.36 pesos for each liter of green gasoline sold, according to Treasury figures published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF), on Friday past.
Per liter of diesel, the government is losing 6.03 pesos per liter, due to the 100% reduction of the IEPS, and 60 cents due to the additional stimulus to VAT and ISR; on average 6.63 pesos that it does not collect for each liter of diesel.
Meanwhile, for the Premium there is a 97% discount on the IEPS fee, which represents 3.35 pesos lost for each liter sold.
Each week, according to the behavior of prices, the Treasury raises or lowers these quotas, to the Magna, Premium and diesel, and publishes them on Fridays in the DOF.
It’s been two weeks since this fee has been charged at the price of Magna gasoline. On average, 80% of the gasoline consumed in Mexico is imported from the United States, the benchmark market for energy.
Ramses Pech, analyst of the energy and economy industry and partner of Caraiva y Asociados-León & Pech Architects, commented that if the extra subsidies for gasoline continue, it could cause distortions in the market in the medium term.
The specialist considered a better option to take advantage of the high price of oil to extract more crude oil and use the income to pay the debt and that “consumers pay what they have to pay in fuel.”
“Selling crude at $100 gives you a profit of $47, refining crude at the same price gives you a margin of $12 on average globally,” he said.
With information from Octavio Torres
