Thursday, March 28, 2024

Mid-East drone attack won’t affect gasoline prices: AMLO

The drone attack on oil installations in Saudi Arabia won’t affect gasoline prices in Mexico, President López Obrador said on Tuesday.

“. . . Despite the upward adjustments to crude prices . . . we’re protected and I can say to Mexicans that there will not be variations in gasoline prices, we’re going to continue to maintain the commitment that fuel prices won’t go up in real terms,” López Obrador told reporters at his morning news conference.

The price of WTI crude rose 14.7% to US $62.90 per barrel on Monday two days after Saturday’s pre-dawn attack on facilities owned by Saudi Aramco, the Middle East nation’s state-owned oil company.

The coordinated strikes on the company’s facilities disrupted about half of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity, or 5% of daily global supply. Authorities were forced to cut oil output by 5.7 million barrels per day as a result of the attack, for which Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility.

Ricardo Sheffield Padilla, head of the consumer protection agency Profeco, explained that prices at gas stations in Mexico will remain stable because the Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) has the power to increase or decrease gasoline subsidies and a stimulus scheme that is designed to alleviate the burden of the IEPS excise tax applied to each liter of fuel.

López Obrador said that officials from the SHCP and the state oil company Pemex will meet today to discuss the situation in the Middle East and its effect on petroleum prices.

“. . . On the one hand, the price increase benefits us because we sell crude oil abroad but as we are buyers of [foreign] gasoline and diesel, it can [also] harm us,” he said.

Source: El Financiero (sp) 

The container ship the Dali crashing into the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore

AMLO confirms 1 Mexican rescued, 2 missing after Baltimore bridge collapse

0
Mexico's President López Obrador confirmed Wednesday morning that the Mexican nationals were working on the bridge when it collapsed Tuesday.
Firefighters in Veracruz

1,000 firefighters combat blazes in Veracruz as wildfires spike nationwide

0
The wildfires in the mountainous central region of the state started on Saturday and have yet to be fully controlled.
A worker sprays a field with a chemical

Mexico postpones glyphosate ban citing lack of available alternatives

1
The World Health Organization classifies the controversial herbicide as a “probable carcinogen.”