In the first days of March of this year, the highest prices were reported in the Dominican Republic, while the lowest were registered in the Panamanian capital.
The regional report on average prices to the final consumer of gasoline, diesel and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in Central America, effective for the week of February 27 to March 7, 2021, was made based on official prices and monitoring or surveys carried out by the different General Directorates of Hydrocarbons or equivalent, in the capital of each Central American country.
In Central America, it is projected that the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the business of retail sales of gasoline and oil products will be explained mainly by the expected drop in gasoline and diesel sales.
The "Information System for the Impact Analysis of covid-19 on Business", prepared by the Trade Intelligence Unit of CentralAmericaData, measures the degree of impact that the crisis will have on companies according to their sector or economic activity, during the coming months.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $3.86, Nicaragua $3.53, Honduras $3.41, El Salvador $3.06, Guatemala $3.05 and Panama $2.83.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador:
The current reference prices are low for gasoline and diesel nationally, this responds to the latest weekly report of oil reserves provided by the IEA, which reported a 5.07-million-barrel increase, well above the forecast of experts who predicted a superficial growth of just 500 thousand barrels per week. This generates continuity of raw material for petroleum products, even though gasoline reserves decreased 3.04 million barrels and diesel 1.03 million barrels per week.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $3.97, Nicaragua $3.55, Honduras $3.40, El Salvador $3.09, Guatemala $3.09 and Panama $2.83.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador statement:
The current reference prices show increases in the prices of gasoline and diesel, this is because of the recent armed attack on the country of Saudi Arabia, which is the world's second largest producer of oil and derivatives.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $4.44, Nicaragua $3.61, Honduras $3.44, El Salvador $3.12, Guatemala $3.09 and Panama $2.93.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador statement:
The reference prices for gasoline and diesel add their second consecutive decline for the current fortnight, the reductions are because of increases in production and refining by U.S.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $4.12, Nicaragua $3.82, Honduras $3.44, El Salvador $3.29, Guatemala $3.22 and Panama $3.04.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador:
The current increases in liquid fuels (gasoline and diesel) are influenced by the decrease in the extraction of oil and processing of derivatives. In the last two weeks the IEA reported a reduction in reserves of 10.58 million barrels of oil and a reduction of 3.03 million barrels of gasoline, generating uncertainty in the international market, reflected in rising prices.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $4.25, Nicaragua $3.68, Honduras $3.59, El Salvador $3.21, Guatemala $3.18 and Panama $3.14.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador statement:
The reference prices for gasoline and diesel are experiencing important reductions in their prices again, because of the good production moment that the U.S.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $4.27, Nicaragua $3.87, Honduras $3.66, El Salvador $3.34, Guatemala $3.28 and Panama $3.14.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador statement:
The current downward trend in all petroleum products is because during the last half of May the IEA reported that gasoline reserves experienced a 4.8-million-barrel growth, providing stability to the demand for this product.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $4.26, Nicaragua $3.89, Honduras $3.72, El Salvador $3.42, Guatemala $3.38 and Panama $3.29.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador statement:
The current reference prices reflect a downward trend, because during the first weeks of May, reserves of gasoline and distillates show minimal reductions, this has allowed prices to be more stable compared to the previous month, since the first half of May gasoline reported a 790,000-barrel decrease, while in April for the first half reported a 10.6-million-barrel reduction. Regarding diesel distillates, during the first fortnight of May a 1.4-million-barrel decrease was reported, while for the first fortnight of April it was 2.5 million barrels, a less marked difference, which affects the price of low-sulfur diesel for the next fortnight.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Nicaragua $3.81, Costa Rica $3.76, Honduras $3.62, El Salvador $3.44, Guatemala $3.22 and Panama $3.07.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador statement:
The increase in the price of oil derivatives is because of a reduction in oil and derivatives worldwide by OPEC and non OPEC countries led by Russia, which have surpassed their own limit of 1.2 million barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day in March.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $3.51, Nicaragua $3.51, Honduras $3.31, El Salvador $2.04, Guatemala $2.96 and Panama $2.79.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador report:
The upward trend in fuel prices for the current fortnight is because of reduced reserves of gasoline and distillates such as diesel reported by the IEA. In the last week the decrease in gasoline was 4.2 million barrels, the largest decline recorded in 2019.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $3.50, Nicaragua $3.36, Honduras $3.24, El Salvador $2.82, Guatemala $2.82 and Panama $2.63.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador report:
The increase in fuel prices for this fortnight is because of production factors, according to the latest report provided by the IEA, gasoline reserves showed a weekly reduction of 1.5 million barrels, also distillates such as diesel decreased by 1.4 million barrels per week; these inventory reductions affect the tendency of prices to rise, because there are fewer gasoline and diesel reserves to supply the existing demand in the hydrocarbon market, which generates this effect in the international prices of oil derivatives.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $3.48, Nicaragua $3.28, Honduras $3.19, El Salvador $2.81, Guatemala $2.75 and Panama $2.56.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador report:
The increase in the reference prices for the current fortnight, according to the last two reports provided by the IEA, is because the reserves of gasoline and diesel show decreases in the last two weeks.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $3.64, Nicaragua $3.31, Honduras $3.17, El Salvador $2.78, Guatemala $2.73 and Panama $2.56.
From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador report:
The upward trend of the reference prices for the present fortnight, follows the agreement to reduce production by 1.2 million barrels per day by the member countries and non-members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that began on January 1, 2019, has reverted the downward behavior of the prices of all oil derivatives such as gasoline and diesel, a clear example of the firm compliance of such reduction is Saudi Arabia, the largest producer of the organization, which has assumed most of the reduction to 468,000 barrels per day, also at the end of December 2018 the organization had already reduced an approximate 750,000 barrels per day between crude oil and derivatives, which has impacted on international prices for 2019.
Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $3.94, Nicaragua $3.35, Honduras $3.27, El Salvador $2.78, Guatemala $2.78 and Panama $2.64.
From the report of the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador:
The latest report from 2018, provided by the International Energy Agency (AIE) reports that gasoline reserves experienced a significant increase of slightly more than 3.0 million barrels per week against expert forecasts that predicted a minimum increase of just 50,000 barrels per week. Also, distillates such as diesel, kept their production rate and was almost invariable its trend with respect to the previous week, as it only increased 2,000 barrels in the week, against an expectation of a 500 thousand barrels reduction, which despite the favorable environment for the reduction of such a derivative of oil along with heating, its stability allows prices to be downward, along with those of gasoline.