Enemalta pulls back from wholesale increase in fuel price

The Enemalta Coporation has formally withdrawn its decision to raise the wholesale price of fuel, averting a threatened strike by petrol stations.

Instead, the corporation promised to embark on an exercise with the Malta Resources Authority to establish how it could implement the adjustments gradually.

Carlo Cini, who heads the petrol station owners' section within the Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises - GRTU, hailed the agreement as "positive".

Problems between the corporation and petrol station owners erupted last month when the owners received a letter from Enemalta CEO Karl Camilleri informing them that the company would be raising its selling price for fuel by 1.6 cents per litre from July 1, after its three-year agreement with them expired at the end of June.

The petrol station owners retaliated with a threat not to buy any fuel from Enemalta, which would have amounted to a strike as they would not have any to sell to consumers.

The letter had been temporarily withdrawn some days after it was sent, after an eleventh-hour intervention by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech. But it has now been permanently withdrawn.