NEPAL has nearly doubled aviation fuel prices as global energy costs surge during the Middle East war, officials said Thursday, raising fears of a fresh blow to its tourism-dependent economy.
The landlocked Himalayan nation of 30 million relies almost entirely on India for its fossil fuel supplies, leaving it exposed to international price shocks.
“Aviation fuel prices have increased,” Manoj Kumar Thakur, spokesman for the state-owned Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), told AFP.
Jet fuel price has risen by 97.6 per cent, from 127 Nepali rupees ($0.86) per litre to 251 rupees ($1.69), NOC said in a statement.
Thakur said while fuel supplies remained stable, the corporation was incurring heavy losses on other petroleum products despite some price hikes last week.
The corporation had already lost five billion rupees ($33 million) in the past two weeks, he said.
Last month, Nepal began selling half-filled cooking gas cylinders to discourage hoarding and panic buying, and officials are now urging the public to cut back on fuel use. “We are a landlocked country and we are fully dependent on India for petrol, diesel and LPG. The only way out is reducing consumption,” Thakur said.
AFP
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