Central America: Fuel Prices at the Beginning of 2020

Price per gallon of regular gasoline: Costa Rica $4.11, Nicaragua $3.57, Honduras $3.46, Guatemala $3.09, El Salvador $3.07 and Panama, $2.85

From the Ministry of Economy of El Salvador’s statement:

The current reference prices show increases in all their presentations, because of the announcement given by the United States and China, about the signing of phase 1 of the economic conflict in January 2020. After 17 months of negotiations, this agreement establishes the reduction of tariffs on raw materials and products between both countries, where oil and its derivatives are benefited; therefore, the expectations of demand for all fuels at the international level increased, increasing international prices.

In addition, the IEA reported that oil reserves in the last two weeks decreased by 6.56 million barrels, which impacted international prices, also, the existence of gasoline only increased 1.96 million barrels in the last week and diesel presented a fall of 152 thousand barrels per week, so prices rose until the end of the week of December 27.

*Prices taken from Acodeco.gob.pa