LPG prices increased again

Price rises by Rs19,000 per ton in line with international price.

KARACHI: Local producers of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) have increased prices by Rs19,000 per ton, in accordance with a rise in international Saudi Armaco Contract prices. A statement to this effect was issued by the patron-in-chief of the All Pakistan LPG Distributors Association Abdul Hadi Khan here on Friday.

The new prices will be effective from August 3, 2012. He said the per kilogram (kg) price of LPG has been raised by Rs19, while the cost for refilling an 11.8kg cylinder has been increased by Rs224, and the cost of refilling a 45.4kg cylinder has gone up by Rs863.

Hadi said that, in Karachi, LPG will be sold at Rs118 per kilo; in Lahore for Rs123 per kilo; in Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa at Rs128 per kilo; and in the northern areas, Mansehra, FATA, Batgram and Azad Jammu and Kashmir at Rs 132 per kilo.

Hadi claimed that demand for LPG has surged to 1,700 tons per day, but producers have kept production at 800 tons per day for the last year and a half. “There is a need to increase LPG production in the country on the one hand, and reduce its price on the other,” he observed. He feared that LPG sales will decline by 15% in the country due to this gap, and affect growth of the LPG industry.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2012.