QCOSTARICA – At 12:01 am this Thursday, May 5, the latest increase – the fifth consecutive this year – in fuel prices took effect at the gasoline pumps across the country.
The price for a liter of super gasoline today is ¢951 colones, regular ¢927 and diesel ¢904; an increase of ¢42, ¢38 and ¢59, respectively.
With this increase, a new historic record of fuel prices is set.
A new increase is expected before the end of the month, as the Refinadora Costarricense de Petroleo (RECOPE), the Costa Rican refinery that refines nothing, gets set to make a new request next Friday (the 13).
The request is based on the current methodology of setting and regulating fuel prices in the country, occurring every second Friday of the month, and the regulatory authority (ARESEP), resolving the request within 15 days.
Mario Mora, Mayor of Energy of the ARESEP, specified that the adjustment is fundamentally due to pressure from the exchange rate.
The president of Consumers of Costa Rica, Érick Ulate, criticized the Government considering that it has not intervened to stop the increases in the price of fuels.
The upward trend in the price of fuels in Costa Rica is due to two factors: the high cost of the finished product at the international level, which has been impacted for more than two months by the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and the other important factor is the exchange rate, that is, the devaluation of the colon against the U.S. dollar.
“Given the crisis that the energy markets are facing as a result of the war, the upward trend in international prices continues to be one of the main variables that explain the increase that must be recognized in the internal price of fuels.
“However, it is necessary to clarify that in the case of Costa Rica, the upward trend in the exchange rate continues to generate additional pressures that significantly explain the increase in fuel prices at the local level,” said Mora.
