BY CATHERINE MUCHIRI FUEL prices have gone up, hardly a week after government pledged to lower the pump price after increasing ethanol blending from E10 to E20.
The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) said a litre of petrol is now US$1,68 up from US$1,64, while diesel went up from US$1,71 to US$1,74.
“If we had not increased blending, the fuel price would have been much higher. Blending actually reduced the impact of the fuel price rise as the actual price for petrol would have been US$1,73,” Zera chief executive, Edington Tapera Mazambani Mazambani told NewsDay Weekender yesterday.
“The price for the diesel which is not blended is a full absorption of the movement in the industrial price for diesel.”
Zera, however, said ethanol blending would be at E15, and not the E20 announced by Cabinet.
Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa told a post-Cabinet briefing this week that fuel blending would result in the reduction in the price of petrol by US$0,07 per litre.
Mutsvangwa said this would cushion motorists from the sharp increase in fuel prices caused by the instability caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, resulting in uncertainty in fuel supplies.
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