The Mobil Oil gas station on Beach Road in Garapan displays its new fuel prices on Thursday.
AFTER more than a month since the last price rollback, fuel prices on Saipan have gone up by 10 cents.
Mobil Oil on Wednesday raised the per gallon price of regular gas to $5.36 from $5.26; premium gas to $5.81 from $5.71; and diesel to $5.73 from $5.68.
As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Shell Marianas had not increased its fuel prices, but was expected to follow suit.
The Tinian Fuel Services and Calvo Enterprises on Rota had yet to implement the fuel price increases.
On Tinian, regular gas was still $7.12 a gallon and diesel stayed at $7.52 a gallon. On Rota, regular gas remained at $6.74 a gallon while diesel was unchanged at $10.02 a gallon.
A company driver on Saipan, Raul Revillame, said fuel price increases “hurt my pocket.” He said he spends $80 on gasoline for his car every two weeks.
As for the gasoline of the container van he drives, “it’s the customers that pay for the cost,” he said.
According to Reuters, “Oil prices edged up about 1% on Wednesday on a bigger-than-expected U.S. crude storage withdrawal, a slump in U.S. crude output, Chinese economic stimulus, geopolitical tensions and a weaker dollar.”
Brent crude futures rose 49 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $80.04 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude ended 72 cents, or 1.0%, at $75.09, Reuters added.
“U.S. crude output fell from a record-tying 13.3 million barrels per day … two weeks ago to a five-month low of 12.3 bpd last week after oil wells froze during an Arctic freeze,” Reuters stated.
