So there you have it, retail price of fuel will indeed go down from midnight today. The Finance Ministry declared so earlier today which minister Lim Guan Eng said was earlier discussed during a cabinet meeting chaired by PM Tun Mahathir on 2 Jan.

Retail prices of petroleum products will be maintained at below RM2.20 per litre for RON95 petrol and RM2.18 per litre for diesel through subsidies when global prices go up, in order to shield consumers from the effects of substantial price rises.

The new prices will be in effect from 5 January to 11 January 2019.

“The retail prices of petroleum products will be re-coordinated weekly according to the managed float system under the Automatic Pricing Mechanism (APM) formula, in line with the current downward trend in oil prices on world markets,” Lim said. He was referring to the previous mechanism adopted by the previous ruling government.

A factor that is given more weight in the APM formula is the margin or commission of petrol stations.

The government had agreed that petrol station operators’ margins be streamlined with an additional 2.81 sen to 15 sen per litre for RON95 petrol and an additional three sen to 10 sen per litre for diesel products.

“This is a rise of 2.81 sen per litre for petrol and three sen per litre for diesel compared to the current rates of 12.19 sen per litre for petrol and 7.00 sen per litre for diesel. The last time the rates were reviewed was in 2008,” he said.