Energy policymakers have agreed to another cut in the levy collection for the state Oil Fund to help stabilise fluctuating domestic retail oil prices, says Energy Minister Narongchai Akrasanee.
The Energy Policy Administration Committee (EPAC) yesterday agreed to cut the levy in the range of 30-60 satang per litre in order to keep domestic retail prices unchanged.
The Dubai crude oil reference price has risen sharply by US$5.20 per barrel over the past two weeks, from $54.90 per barrel on April 2 to $60.10 on Thursday, indicating volatility is likely to affect retail prices and oil consumers eventually.
As a result, the levy collected for the state Oil Fund will drop to 1.23 billion baht a month from the current 2.55 billion baht.
"The cut in levy collection will not have any effect on the fund's stability, as cash
will be collected anyway," said Mr Narongchai.
Since the global LPG prices went into decline last year, reducing the subsidy burden of the fund, it is no longer in the red and now has 34 billion baht in total.
Meanwhile, energy policymakers and operators succeeded in securing power supplies during the natural gas disruption that began more than a week ago.
Three gas fields in Myanmar are scheduled to be fixed and undergo maintenance checks.
The disruption of the first two fields, Yadana and Yetakun, which account for 20% of total gas supply, started late last week and will run until tomorrow.
The Zawtika gas field, which accounts for 7% of total supply, is scheduled to be disrupted from April 20-27.
Deputy energy permanent secretary Twarath Sutabutr said the disruption in supply had forced the electricity sector to shift energy sources from gas to diesel and bunker oil, which would provide 16% of total power generation.
However, there have been no blackouts during the gas supply disruption, as the authorities have closely monitored and balanced power demand and supply to prevent power shortages.
In addition, supplies of bunker oil and diesel at each power plant are sufficient to avert power disruptions.
The bunker oil inventory is running at full storage capacity of 150 million litres par day, while 99 million litres of diesel are stored at the five power plants — Ratchaburi, North Bangkok, South Bangkok, Bang Pakong and Tri Energy Co.
The costly bunker oil and diesel-generated electricity will push up production costs for the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, but no figures have been disclosed.
Generating power from diesel and bunker oil is twice as costly as gas.
During the gas disruption, the Energy Regulatory Commission is running a demand-response (DS) campaign in a bid to cut electricity demand from businesses with power tariff discounts of three baht per kilowatt-hour.
So far, 823 participants have signed up for the DS campaign.
They have volunteered to cut demand by a total of 720 megawatts.