RON97 petrol up 10 sen to RM2.50 per liter tonight?

When I first read Petrol Dealers Association of Malaysia (PDAM) president Hashim Othman saying the current situation in Egypt could disrupt the supply of oil and make the price of crude oil go up, resulting in a RON97 hike according to the government’s “formula”, I knew a fuel hike was on the way.

I did not know it would be so soon, as after I read the PDAM president quote this morning, newspieces by the online editions of major dailies started appearing in the evening saying RON97 could be hiked by 10 sen at midnight tonight, bringing it up to RM2.50 per litre. RON97 was last hiked in early January 2011 by 10 sen to RM2.40 per litre, and before that the last hike was on the 1st of December 2010, also by 10 sen. If this 10 sen per month trend continues, we could be at RM3 per litre by the middle of the year.

Interestingly, from the graph above crude oil prices today seem to be a little lower than it was during the last hike. And this WSJ story says: “Crude oil futures were steady Monday as unrest in Egypt showed no signs of easing and attention turned to operations at the Suez Canal, a key world energy hub.”