Treasury loses 5 billion pesos a week for subsidizing fuel

The subsidy to avoid the increase in fuel prices costs the treasury 5 billion pesos weekly, reported President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. Given this, he demanded that gas stations “not overdo it”, given that the cap on diesel prices has become a dead letter in various service stations, where the fuel, which by voluntary agreement would be sold for a maximum of 28.30 pesos, costs up to 6 pesos more, according to the records of the National Energy Commission (CNE).

For example, at the Developadora Marina Puerto Escondido outlet, in Baja California Sur, diesel is sold at 34.74 pesos per liter, despite the fact that the federal government reached an agreement with the private sector to cushion the rise in fuel prices, in the midst of an energy price crisis that is affecting the world due to the conflict in the Middle East.

During yesterday morning, the president stressed that the Federal Consumer Prosecutor’s Office (Profeco) will sanction service stations that sell magna gasoline above 24 pesos per liter.

In turn, he specified that the maximum price per liter of diesel was set at 28 pesos and 28 cents, and they are seeking to lower it even further.

“It is a very important support that is being given to Mexican families. And it cannot be that the gas stations, therefore, go overboard and increase the price when they are being supported,” he reproached.

“We cannot allow the gas stations to go overboard, because that reduction of 5 billion pesos that could enter the public treasury to allocate it to the Welfare programs, or to everything that is required in our country, which we have committed to with the people of Mexico, it cannot be that there are gas stations that are deceitfully raising the price despite the fact that support is being given so that the price of neither magna gasoline nor diesel does not rise so much.”

The president asked Profeco to intensify inspections and display defaulters with blankets placed in its facilities warning that it sells fuel above what was agreed upon, as was done during the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Sheinbaum Pardo emphasized that the subsidy through the special tax on production of services (IEPS) so that fuel prices do not rise has resulted in the public treasury coffers no longer receiving 5 billion pesos a week.

However, he noted that there is a compensation of 3 billion pesos, which is what Petróleos Mexicanos receives weekly. “It is like 2 billion pesos a week that is being given as support.”

He explained that, due to the war in the Middle East, international oil and fuel prices have skyrocketed. In the case of Mexico, he pointed out, a liter of magna gasoline should be 33 pesos, but thanks to the subsidy it remains below 24. So he urged fuel consumers to choose “better gas stations” that offer fair prices.

In Nuevo León, in the municipality of García, a liter of diesel is sold for 28.69 pesos at a station located at Calzada de Los Corceles 300. In Mexico City, the level reaches 28.99 at the gas stations on Avenida Revolución 1649 and Calzada de las Águilas 912.

In Guadalajara, Jalisco, the sale of a liter of this fuel at the outlet on Avenida José Tomás Cuéllar 3 has a limit of 29.69 pesos per liter.

The increase in diesel prices, outside the voluntary agreement, coincides with a mobilization of farmers and transporters who have the consumption of this fuel as one of their main operating costs.