The United Arab Emirates, OPEC’s third- biggest producer, will raise unleaded gasoline prices by 24 percent next month when it becomes the first country in the oil- rich Persian Gulf to remove subsidies on transport fuel.
Motorists in the U.A.E. will pay 2.14 dirhams per liter (58 cents) for 95-octane unleaded gasoline starting Aug. 1 as the country deregulates fuel prices, the official WAM news agency reported Tuesday. The gasoline grade currently sells in the country for 1.72 dirhams per liter, according to the Ministry of Energy’s website.
Diesel, which will also be linked to global markets, was set at 2.05 dirhams per liter, WAM reported. The ministry set 98-octane gasoline at 2.25 dirhams per liter and the 91-octane grade at 2.07 dirhams per liter. Prices for the fuels will be announced on the 28th day of each month, the ministry said July 22 in a statement.
Gasoline is now subsidized in the U.A.E., the second- biggest Arab economy and home to about 6 percent of global oil reserves. Gulf members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries provide some the largest per capita energy subsidies in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund. Subsidies have cost U.A.E. state-owned energy companies about $1 billion a year over the last decade, Suhail Al Mazrouei, the country’s energy minister, said in February.
The current U.S. price for premium unleaded gasoline is $3.16 a gallon, or 83 cents a liter, according to AAA, the biggest U.S. auto group. That compares with 26 cents in Qatar and 21 cents in Kuwait, both of them members of OPEC, and 16 cents in Saudi Arabia, the group’s largest producer, according to data compiled by GlobalPetrolPrices.com. The worldwide average price for gasoline is $1.10 a liter, the data show.