Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine says his ministry is investigating reports of more illegal activity in the retail energy sector, this time in the blackmarket sale of cooking gas cylinders.He said filled cooking gas cylinders were reportedly being snuck out of this country for destinations in the region where LPG tanks were being sold for at least five times higher than the price sold locally.T&T was reported to be the only island in Caribbean where cooking gas was subsidised.
The minister was speaking at the LPG Dealers Association annual dinner at Kapok Hotel, Maraval, on Saturday.A 20-pound cylinder of cooking gas cost consumers between $22-$25. The price variation is determined by whether it is purchased at gas stations or retail depots across the country or on roving sales trucks.The volume of LPG being sold in T&T, said Ramnarine, was gradually increasing. In fiscal 2008 the amount of LPG sold in T&T was 125 million pounds. That had increased to 140 million pounds in 2013, he added.
He wondered if people were cooking more food or they were cooking the same amount of food for longer periods.Ramnarine told the T&T Guardian that news of this development came almost four months after the State's crackdown on the blackmarket sale of diesel fuel.
The ministry was now seeking to clamp down on illegal sale of the LPG, he added.Ramnarine said there were approximately one million LPG cylinders in circulation in the country, the majority being 20-pound cylinders.
He added: "T&T's LPG is the cheapest in the Caribbean. What the average Jamaican pays for LPG is nowhere close to what we in T&T pay for it."I am told that to have a 100-pound cylinder in your yard in Jamaica is to be considered somebody who is well off. In T&T, most middle class dwelling in this country have two 100-pound cylinders."The country needs to know that its LPG is subsidised by Petrotrin but when the cat cracker is down we get our LPG from Phoenix Park.
"But Phoenix Park sells its LPG at world market prices which is about eight times more than what Petrotrin would sell to NP, so when that happens Government has to step in and compensate NP for buying LPG for world market prices. LPG is very important," Ramnarine said.