OREANDA-NEWS. August 09, 2011. The petrol price increased by an average of 17.3 per cent, reaching 15.29 lei per one litre in the first half of 2011. The diesel oil price went up by 24.7 per cent, amounting to 14.3 lei per one litre, according to a press release by the National Agency for Regulation of Energy (ANRE).

The price of the liquefied gas rose by 11.8 per cent, standing at 7.38 lei/litre. The retail prices of petrol changed four times, the ones of diesel oil five times, and of the liquefied gas thrice.

ANRE experts explain the increase in the fuel price by "the rise in import prices of oil products prompted by an increase in the oil quotas and Platt's prices at international exchanges". As a result, the petrol and diesel oil import prices increased by an average of 33.5 and respectively 41 percent, going up to 1,007.8 dollars/ton and respectively, 986.3 dollars/ton.

In the first half of 2011, the imports of petrol rose by 5.5 per cent and of diesel oil by 27.5 per cent. The largest quantity of petrol (63.3 per cent) and diesel oil (53 per cent) were imported from Romania and of liquefied gas from Russia (73.7 per cent). Moldova has five big petrol importers: LUKoil - Moldova, Petrom - Moldova, Tirex Petrol, Bemol Trading, and Rompetrol Moldova, which imported 88.4 per cent of all the petrol into Moldova. The five companies and Parstar - PetrolLtd were the main importers of diesel oil, with 82.9 per cent of all imports on this market.

ANRE's data also show that in January-June 2011, the retail sales of diesel oil and liquefied gas increased by 15.2 and respectively 12.8 percent , while the sales of petrol dropped by 6.6 per cent against the same period of the year before. The agency explains this evolution by an increase in the demand of diesel oil and liquefied gas that are cheaper than the petrol.