Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday announced that there would be no change in the prices of petroleum products for the next fortnight.

In a video message from Washington, where he is participating in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings, Dar said the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s fuel price summary was received by the finance ministry, adding that it had an “insignificant” price decrease recommendation for petrol and price increase recommendation for kerosene, light diesel oil (LDO) and high-speed diesel (HSD).

“I discussed with the prime minister and it was decided that we will not change the prices of all four products and they will remain the same till October 31,” he said, adding that there would be no increase or decrease.

The current price for petrol price is Rs224.80 per litre, Rs235.30 for HSD, Rs186.50 for LDO and Rs191.83 for kerosene.

A day ago, Dawn reported that despite a 14 per cent appreciation of the rupee against the dollar, the prices of three major petroleum products were estimated to go up by Rs5 to 12 per litre and that of petrol to drop by almost Rs11 per litre on Oct 15 for next fortnight if the government maintained its existing tax rates.

Based on existing tax rates, the ex-depot price of petrol was estimated to come down by Rs10.75 per litre to about Rs214. Conversely, the price of HSD was estimated to increase by Rs11.50 per litre to about Rs247. Likewise, the prices of kerosene and LDO were estimated to be higher by Rs4.50 and Rs7.50 per litre to about Rs196 and Rs194 per litre, respectively.

The benchmark international crude prices had dropped over the last couple of weeks but because of refining capacity constraints, refining margins and premiums on HSD had increased over the same period, resulting in a higher cost impact on HSD imports to Pakistan. The crude prices again started an upward journey this week after production cuts announced by the major oil exporting countries but these would translate to price changes in the next fortnight beginning November 1.