Distributors demand DACO intervene on liquified gas prices
By The Star Staff
Federation of United Gas Distributors (Fedigas) President Carlos Jurado Roque demanded on Thursday that the Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO by its Spanish acronym) intervene over the alleged refusal of liquefied gas wholesalers to adjust consumer prices, which have remained high despite a reported dramatic drop in the reference markets in recent weeks.
“It is clear that the price the consumer is paying is absolutely abusive and unjustified,” Jurado Roque said in a radio interview. “It is a Christmas assault on the consumer’s pocket while it is a mega Christmas bonus for the two companies that monopolize the liquefied gas industry in Puerto Rico, with the indifference of DACO, to which is added the Senate’s lack of response.”
Jurado Roque pointed out that today the highest price in the reference market of Mount Belvieu was $1.61 per gallon, in March 2022, and that has since dropped consistently to $0.68 a gallon in early December 2022. That reduction of 93 cents per gallon in the past nine months, equivalent to $22 on the 100-pound gas cylinder, has not reached the consumer, including small and midsize businesses, he said.
“We urgently call on DACO, the Legislature and the Office of Monopolistic Affairs not to sit idly by in the face of this unsustainable reality,” the Fedigas leader said. “If any vaccination is urgent, it has to be against the indifference in these public entities when it comes to combating the virus of greed of two companies that enrich themselves at the expense of consumer poverty.”