A com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, in­clud­ing in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy prices and fu­el con­sump­tion led to a re­duc­tion in T&T's fu­el sub­sidy for the first six months of fis­cal year 2015, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine re­vealed yes­ter­day.

"The sub­sidy is a func­tion of vol­ume, of fu­el con­sumed and the price of oil on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket, which has an im­pact on the ex-re­fin­ery price at Petrotrin. From Oc­to­ber 2014 to March 2015 the sub­sidy was ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.1 bil­lion and the levy, which is a con­tri­bu­tion made by the oil com­pa­ny, was $191 mil­lion.

"It means that the gov­ern­ment sub­sidy li­a­bil­i­ty for the first six months of the fis­cal year is $912 mil­lion. That is sig­nif­i­cant­ly less from what ob­tained in the same pe­ri­od for 2013 to 2014," he said.

Ram­nar­ine, who was speak­ing at the open­ing of the NP Ram­co Ser­vice Sta­tion at the Massy Su­per Store, Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, said the amount of fu­el con­sumed in the coun­try has in­creased over the last 14 years.

"The ve­hi­cle pop­u­la­tion in this coun­try has grown to an es­ti­mat­ed 791, 086 ve­hi­cles as at Feb­ru­ary 2015. The con­sump­tion of fu­el has in­creased from 722 mil­lion litres of liq­uid fu­el like diesel and su­per gaso­line in 2000 to 1.2 bil­lion litres of liq­uid fu­el con­sumed in T&T on an an­nu­al ba­sis.

"That is an in­crease of 67 per cent. It was ac­tu­al­ly high­er a few years ago, as over the last four years the min­istry has been suc­cess­ful in rolling back the il­le­gal trade in diesel," he said.

Ram­nar­ine said the new ser­vice sta­tion is the re­sult of a part­ner­ship be­tween Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um and Ram­co.

"There has been a great ex­pan­sion of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment in the Trinci­ty area. We ex­pect this to be one of the high­est vol­ume gas sta­tions in T&T," he said.