The price of cooking gas, also known as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), will remain fixed at 423 baht per 15-kilogramme cylinder until Sept 30 as energy officials have agreed to extend subsidies from the Oil Fuel Fund.
The current LPG subsidy is scheduled to end on Sunday, prompting the Energy Policy Administration Committee (Epac) to meet on Thursday to review the impact of higher cooking gas prices on the cost of living, said Energy Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, who chaired the meeting.
The current 423-baht price has been in place since March last year, up from 408 baht. It is still 11% less than the market price of 477 baht. According to Epac, LPG is currently quoted at 29.54 baht per kilogramme, or $582 per tonne, based on the Saudi Arabia reference price in June.
The Oil Fuel Fund subsidises LPG prices at a rate of 4.74 baht/kg. However, as of Wednesday, the fund had run up a huge loss of 110.7 billion baht, comprising 47.6 billion baht used to subsidise LPG prices and 63.1 billion to subsidise diesel.
Epac is aware of the financial status of the fund and told the Oil Fuel Fund Office to carefully manage spending, said Mr Pirapan.
The Office was granted a 50-billion-baht loan to support the fund and settle some of the debts it owes to oil traders.
Officials have so far spent 47.6 billion baht from that amount. This raised concern that the fund will not have enough money to continue subsidy programmes. Each month, up to 1.52 billion baht is spent supporting diesel and LPG price subsidies.