The Thai government is expected to spend about 45 billion baht to fund a set of measures to ease the burden on the public of rising oil and gas prices for three months, said Energy Permanent Secretary Kulit Sombatsiri today (Thursday).

Since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, he said that the government has spent about 164 billion baht just to keep oil and gas prices below actual market prices, resulting in the Oil Fund running over 32 billion baht into the red.

He cited the case of diesel, which is capped at 30 baht/litre until the end of April, after which the government will step in to subsidise half of the price increase for two months in May and June, adding that the diesel price can be kept at between 30 and 32 baht/litre if global crude oil drops to US$95 per barrel.

He said the government will continue to subsidize cooking gas prices for household use, even though it will allow the price to go up each month until June.

The cooking gas price is currently capped at 318 per 156kg canister until end of March.

State welfare card holders will also receive a 100-baht subsidy for the purchase of cooking gas for April through June.

About 157,000 motorcycle taxi drivers will each receive a 250 baht discount per month for three months on the purchase of benzene, while taxi drivers can buy NGV at the special price of 13.62 baht/kg until June 15^th.

About 20 million households which use fewer than 300 units of electricity per month will have the FT charge kept at 3.7 baht/unit of electricity from May through August.