The price of petrol, diesel and kerosene for Tonga will continue to decrease from this month to January, 2016 starting, today 16 December.

The new retail prices for this month to January next year including consumption tax are:

Petrol 222.46 seniti per litre, 10.5 seniti decrease

Diesel 221.60 seniti per litre, 6.19 seniti decrease

Kerosene 154.18 seniti per litre, 6.37 seniti decrease

The Competent Authority said the petroleum prices for December 2015 to January 2016 were mainly determined by the movement of FOB prices in the Singapore market based on last month’s average prices of the daily published Means of Platt’s Singapore (MOPS) benchmark prices.

The authority stated that comparing November’s average prices with October, crude oil (Dated Brent) is down by USD4.27/bbl (8.8%). Petrol prices fell a similar amount (USD4.14/bbl) while kerosene and diesel prices were down USD1.82/bbl and USD1.67/bbl respectively because there was improvement in the refinery margin of these products.

In addition, "the freight rate weakened and the Tonga pa’anga strengthened in November, which helped further reduced landed costs locally."

On the outlook, crude oil prices are expected to continue to reduce with abundant supply.