Liquefied petroleum gas also becomes pricier as the government gave the highest-ever raise to the LPG tariffs by 21.59 per cent, in sync with increase in natural gas-and power prices.
Private operators will now charge Tk 1,498 per 12-kilgram cylinder in February trading, up by Tk 266 from January's retailing rate of Tk 1,232.
This happens to be the highest-ever price hike of LPG by Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), market- insiders said after Thursday's announcement.
The new price came into immediate effect from 6:00pm Thursday, according to a notification issued by the BERC.
Earlier, a hike in retail electricity tariffs by up to 5.07 per cent, bulk electricity tariffs by up to 7.36 per cent and natural gas tariffs by up to 178.88 per cent came into effect from February 1.
The commission Thursday 'adjusted' the cooking-fuel price for the domestic market by taking Saudi Aramco contract price (CP) of February 2023 as the benchmark.
"Also comes into calculation the fluctuations in foreign-exchange rates and changes in value-added tax (VAT)," says one of the sources quoted above.
The Saudi Aramco CP price of propane and butane is referred to as US$790 per tonne each for February trading.
In doing the hike arithmetic the BERC considered the propane and butane mixture at the ratio of 35:65 to get the average price at $790 per tonne.
The Saudi Aramco CP price of propane was US$590 per tonne and butane $605 per tonne for January trading.
In latest practice with energy pricing, the BERC fixes the LPG prices for private operators within the first week of every month over the past year.
The private traders can sell LPG through different sizes of cylinders like 5.5 kg, 12.5kg, 15kg, 16kg, 18kg, 20kg, 22kg, 25kg, 30kg, 35 kg and 45 kg to consumers at proportionately higher prices in February, according to the BERC statement.
The price of LPG to be supplied through a reticulated system, or centralised storage system, will be Tk 121.62 per kg inclusive of VAT for February.
And retail price of autogas, the LPG used in vehicles, also has been hiked to Tk 69.71 per litre, including VAT, from the previous rate of Tk 57.41 per litre.
The price of state-owned LP Gas's LPG, however, kept unchanged at Tk 591 per 12.5 kg cylinder.
Sources said currently some 27 LPG operators are doing business although some 58 received licences to carry out the business.
Some 20 operators import around 1.10 million tonnes of LPG from the international market, which is around 98 per cent of the country's total requirement for LPG, while seven are satellite operators.
There are 20 LPG terminals across the country with the reserve capacity of around 100,000 tonnes in total.
Some 35 million LPG cylinders are being used in the LPG businesses in the country.
Around 200 road tankers, 5,000 trucks and 21 cargoes are involved in the LPG businesses across the country.
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