…But gasoline prices skyrocket

And while it may soon cost less to watch TV or iron your clothes, driving to work will definitely become more expensive. The much delayed Esso fuel tanker has finally arrived in port, and the new prices, while not unexpected, are high enough to make you trade in that S.U.V. for a motorbike.

According to sources in the industry, the new rates at the pump in Belize City, which will be officially announced tomorrow, are as follows.

Premium gasoline goes up by sixty cents per gallon to seven dollars and fifty-five cents. Regular sells for seven-forty, a rise of sixty-five cents. Kerosene reaches four-eighty-five per gallon, an increase of sixty-three cents, and increasingly popular diesel fuel will rise by fifty-five cents to five dollars and fifty-cents per gallon.

For those motorists desperate to save a few bucks, you still have a chance to make it to the pumps, as those new prices do not go into effect until midnight. Government had absorbed the cost of the last three pre-election fuel shipments, but could not afford to continue. Tonight’s increases reflect not only the latest rise in acquisition costs, but seek to regain much of the ground lost by the Treasury over the last several months. The rapid increase in world petroleum prices is the result of fears over the war in Iraq as well as civil strife in Venezuela and Nigeria.