Gas station owners knock PEMEX deal
It was the only real piece of new news to emerge from the visit of Mexican President Vicente Fox; that is the announcement that neighbouring oil giant PEMEX would be opening a gas station in Belize. The move was hailed by the Prime Minister as an important breakthrough, and he held out the prospect that the end of the Esso import monopoly would result in lower fuel prices for the beleaguered motoring public. But details of the project were in short supply and the Prime Minister either could not or would not say who would be PEMEX’s local partner. Also, the idea of a single gas station seemed like a puny weapon in the fight against high oil prices. Even so, it didn’t take long for local retailers to react. The Belize Service Station Dealers Association published a highly critical newspaper ad and today one of the association’s directors told News Five that while he sympathized with consumers, the route to lower prices does not lead to Mexico.
Daniel Habet, Bz. Service Station Dealers Assn.
?We are concerned in terms of if PEMEX is going to open new stations because we had been fighting with government to get dealers tariffs up and now having to compete with a big giant like PEMEX, probably the margins of profits for us is going to erode now. So it is very much a concern for us in terms of PEMEX coming into this country.?
Stewart Krohn
?Is your fear that PEMEX is going to come in with lower prices hence, the PEMEX dealer or dealers would attract more business and take business away from your members??
Daniel Habet
?Well I?m not sure if they?re going to come in with lower prices. I think that?s what they?re advertising right now, but I hope they don?t. I hope it becomes a level playing field. We can?t compete with lower prices, because we don?t control the prices we receive from our companies.?
Stewart Krohn
?What about looking at it from the consumer side, the taxi drivers, people who own vehicles, the bus companies, they suffering on a regular basis. What do you have to say to them when it looks like they get a little shot at some lower prices at the pump and now you guys kinda come in and protest that, what you have to say to the average guy who?s buying gasoline??
Daniel Habet
?We would love if the entire Belizean public gets lower prices on fuel, just that it would be a disadvantage to the stations that have been existing over the last forty, fifty years in Belize for PEMEX to come in and drop the prices on fuel, which would be definitely a disadvantage to us. But if competition is supposed to be good for everyone, I guess we will have to do something to compete.?
And while the dealers face a future of at least minimal competition, the prospect of PEMEX combined with the deal recently signed between Caribbean nations and Venezuela, calls into question the pricing practices of major oil companies like Esso. If that one company owns the crude, the refineries, and the distribution system, how can a country like Belize, with only a single supplier, get anything but the shaft. According to Dealer Association official Daniel Habet, the problem of high prices originates with government, not the oil companies.
Daniel Habet
?I think that they just compensate to what the cost of acquisition goes up. After seeing reports from Belize from Esso and the people that bring in the fuel, which are Esso, I would have to stay that it?s the government who takes advantage with the taxes because sometimes acquisition costs goes down, but the price of fuel in Belize doesn?t. Government takes that extra amount of cents and adds that to RRD or one of the taxes they have on fuel, so I don?t think it?s the companies fault for the gas to be this high. I think it has more to do with government taking that little advantage every time they have the chance to.?
According to Habet, who operates a Shell station in San Ignacio, another growing problem is the wide disparity in fuel prices between Belize and Guatemala. He claims that with gas around two-fifty a gallon cheaper across the border, many of his customers are filling up in neighbouring Melchor de Mencos. Currently in Belize City, the price of premium is eight ninety-eight per gallon, regular is eight sixty-six, and diesel goes for six sixty-five.
