The Oil Fuel Fund Office (Offo) has lowered the biodiesel B10 price by another 50 satang per litre from Friday to increase local consumption and nudge Thai motorists away from B7.
The B7 price is set to increase by 50 satang to 26.09 baht per litre, meaning the B10 and B20 prices will be lower than B7 by three baht and 3.5 baht per litre, at 23.09 baht and 22.59 baht, respectively.
The Energy Ministry wants to promote consumption of B10 and B20 to use more methyl ester from crude palm oil, blended as biodiesel.
Viraphol Jirapraditkul, director of Offo, said the agency will collect a levy from motorists for B7 of one baht per litre, up from 25 satang, and subsidise the B10 price at 2.5 baht, up from two baht per litre, while the B20 price will be subsidised at 4.41 baht from 3.91 baht per litre.
"The subsidy programme for biodiesel will use 819 million baht per month in cash from the fund, up from 413 million," he said.
Mr Viraphol said the move is to improve the popularity of biofuels.
Use of all types of diesel totals 66 million litres per day, of which 52 million litres are B7, 5.3 million litres B10 and 6.8 million litres B20.
"The levy collection programme is expected cut B7 volume to 8 million litres and B20 to 6 million litres, but increase B10 volume to 52 million litres," he said.
Mr Viraphol said 6,000 oil stations nationwide will have B10 available by March, up from 3,100 stations.
B7 and B20 are positioned as alternative diesels, while B10 is a fundamental diesel.
The Department of Energy Business reported diesel consumption in January dropped by 2.5% to an average of 64.1 million litres, while petrol types rose by 1.8% to 31.8 million litres.
Jet fuel consumption rose by 3% to 22.1 million litres per day in January. Liquefied petroleum gas dropped 4.2% to 16.8 million kilogrammes and compressed natural gas dropped 11% to 4.9 million kg.
In January, crude oil imports per day dropped by 8.5% to 980.741 kilo barrels per day for 67 billion baht in total costs. Refined oil exports dropped 2.1% to 171.386 kilo barrels per day to 11.6 billion baht in costs.
As of Feb 26, the Oil Fuel Fund had 36 billion baht in cash, 41.5 billion of which was for the oil account, while the gas account had a deficit of 5.52 billion.