The government of Antigua and Barbuda has made a firm commitment to retain price controls on cooking gas, turning down long-standing demands for a price increase from the West Indies Oil Company (WIOC), Prime Minister Gaston Browne confirmed over the weekend.
Speaking during a Saturday appearance on the popular Browne and Browne Show, broadcast via local station Pointe FM, Browne addressed growing public anxiety that upcoming adjustments to motor fuel prices would extend to liquefied petroleum gas, the household staple widely known as cooking gas. He clarified that the government’s planned price revisions will exclusively impact gasoline and diesel, with cooking gas remaining under strict regulatory oversight to keep costs low for residents.
“We continue to keep propane gas under price control and to deliberately keep the prices down,” Browne told listeners. He acknowledged that WIOC has lobbied for a cooking gas price hike for multiple years, and the administration recognizes that the regulated retail price of the product currently sits below its actual production and distribution cost, meaning the company is likely operating at a loss on cooking gas sales.
Even amid this recognition of industry financial strain, the prime minister stressed that protecting household budgets remains a top policy priority for his administration. The government will continue to absorb the economic impact of price controls to shield ordinary families from rising energy costs, he confirmed.
Browne’s announcement came ahead of the government’s planned rollout of an approximate 2 Eastern Caribbean dollar per gallon increase for both gasoline and diesel. The prime minister explained that the motor fuel price adjustment has become unavoidable, as the government can no longer sustain the large public subsidies that have kept gasoline and diesel prices artificially lower in recent months. What is clear, however, is that household cooking fuel will be spared from this round of price increases.