This was decided by Raizen, the oil company that owns the exploitation of the Shell brand a 4% drop in fuel prices, which will come into force from this Sunday. In this way the path of increases in the quantities of petrol defined between the Ministry of Energy and the companies is completed.

Ascending It was scheduled for the beginning of the month. But Economy Minister Sergio Massa has asked companies to delay. In this way the transfer was postponed for fifteen days.

There are more increases to come: another 4% in February and 3.8% in March. Then, the Government and companies will sit down to outline the rest of the year.

While other oil companies haven’t announced it yet, once one company scales, the others tend to fold. In this case, it was started by Raizen. Although there may be a difference of hours or days, it has always been followed by its competitors, such as YPF and Axion.

The price of premium gas was $150 at YPF stations in the city of Buenos Aires. While the premium shipped at $185. But Shell sells for higher amounts than YPF. It’s at least $10 more expensive.

A delayed ascent

The oil companies were willing to apply a 4% hike for about two weeks. However, Massa changed the deadlines and the increases went to the second half of January.

The economy minister was shocked when he read on the cover of Clarín that a 4% increase was on the way for that month. He immediately called the oil companies to inform them that they would have to wait for the redial.

Massa, well received by the oil companies, communicated to the companies that only after the second half of January there would be a rise in prices.

The companies (YPF, Axion, Raizen -which manages the Shell brand-) were already studying when to apply the rebranding, until Massa’s decisions reached them.

The first increase, in December, was applied as soon as the calendar changed, and the stationers assumed that this would also happen the following month. But the flurry of increases (public services, prepaid cards, cell phones) has led the government to outline that little break.

The oil companies applied seven increases during 2022. In gasoline they were below the annual CPI, while in diesel they were above that indicator.

IS