Gasoline prices today (August 20): First week of price reduction since June

World oil prices

Concerns about China's slowing economic recovery and a stronger US dollar were key factors that pushed oil prices to unexpectedly break their gains this week, posting their first weekly decline in eight weeks.

This week, gasoline prices experienced their first weekly decline in eight weeks. Illustration photo: Reuters

In the 5 trading sessions of the week, oil prices fell in 3 sessions and recovered some of the losses in the remaining 2 sessions. However, the acceleration in the last 2 sessions was quite weak, not enough to compensate for the previous decline. Therefore, Brent and WTI oil prices both fell by nearly 3% for the whole week, marking the first decline after a series of increases in the previous 7 weeks.

Oil prices fell less than 1% in the first trading session of the week, but even with the decline, the two benchmarks are still well above levels they have been in months, according to Oilprice.

According to Vandana Hari, founder of Vanda Insights, the oil market is in a correction phase as crude has been in overbought territory for some time.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (China) on China's industrial output and retail sales showed China's slow recovery, along with an unexpected increase and decrease in the interest rate for medium-term loans by the People's Bank of China, pushing oil prices to continue to fall more than 1% in the second trading session of the week.

Oil prices continued to decline into the third trading session of the week despite a sharp decrease in US crude oil reserves (nearly 6 million barrels).

Oil prices were expected to continue falling for a fourth session of the week, but they turned slightly higher, supported by the US dollar slipping from a two-month high after the release of minutes from the US Federal Reserve's meeting last month left open the possibility of more interest rate hikes and this week's data showed the US economy is likely to recover.

“Travel demand remains strong, although it typically tapers off after the July 4th U.S. Independence Day holiday,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial.

Signs of falling US production continued to push oil prices up about 1% in the final trading session of the week.

The number of U.S. oil and natural gas rigs, an early indicator of future output, fell for a sixth straight week, industry data showed, Reuters reported. The decline in U.S. production could exacerbate an expected supply crunch for the rest of the year. Notably, OPEC+ production cuts have helped oil prices rise for seven straight weeks since June, with Brent up about 18% and WTI up 20%.

Gasoline prices are expected to continue to increase in the coming time. Illustration photo: Reuters

Rob Haworth, senior portfolio manager at US Bank Asset Management, said investor concerns remain focused on the tension between slowing global growth and still-tight global supplies.

Although oil prices have decreased this week, according to many experts, oil prices will still fluctuate in the range of 75-90 USD/barrel in the coming months and next week, oil prices will continue to increase in the last two trading sessions of this week.

Domestic gasoline prices

Domestic retail prices of gasoline on August 20 are as follows:

E5 RON 92 gasoline is not more than 22,822 VND/liter.

RON 95 gasoline is not more than 23,993 VND/liter.

Diesel oil not more than 22,425 VND/liter.

Kerosene not more than 21,889 VND/liter.

Fuel oil not exceeding 17,668 VND/kg.

The above domestic gasoline prices will be adjusted in the price management session on the afternoon of August 21 by the Ministry of Finance - Industry and Trade. Although world oil prices have experienced a slight decrease this week, in general, the estimated import price is still higher than the current selling price in the domestic market by about 500 to 800 VND/liter. Therefore, it is difficult to expect that gasoline prices will decrease in the next adjustment. It is expected that gasoline prices will continue to increase by a maximum of 800 VND/liter, not including the gasoline price stabilization fund./.

MAI HUONG/qdnd.vn

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