The price of RON95 is expected to increase 10 sen to 20 sen a litre next week, warned Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli.

The PKR lawmaker said this follows market reaction to tensions in the Middle East and the US attacks on Syria last night.

Rafizi cited Bloomberg's report on Brent price as having jumped from the week's opening of USD53.12 per barrel to USD55.12 last night, a “sharp increase of 4 percent in a week”.

“Depending on the response of Russia and the Assad regime's army, if the geopolitical tension does not ease, we may see another sharp increase in crude price,” he said.

He predicted the price to open even higher on Monday, and based on this week's experience, crude price could go beyond USD57.20 per barrel up to USD58 per barrel.

From this, he expects and increase of up to 20 sen next week.

He urged consumers to monitor the price changes carefully to avoid being burdened, and blamed the government for putting the people into hardship with unpredictable fuel prices.

“The reluctance of Prime Minister Najib Razak to reinstate oil subsidies after his administration introduced the weekly pricing has caused the people to face uncertainties in fluctuating fuel prices.”

'Time purchases carefully'

The MP said to overcome this problem, he will put up regular projections of upcoming prices to aid the consumer.

He said his projections are based on movement of world crude prices and other factors that significantly affect fuel prices, including the ringgit exchange rate.

“I advise the consumers to be smart and plan their fuel purchases following the predicted prices.

“I also urge the federal government to intervene in the negotiations between the petrol stations and the oil companies so that the delivery of stock does not cause the stations to run a loss, as they might be forced to buy stocks when the prices are high but are forced to sell it at lower prices,” he said.