TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – State-run oil and gas firm PT Pertamina estimated the price of Premium fuel would drop again in February to below Rp7,000 per liter in light of declining global oil prices, Pertamina’s marketing and trade director Ahmad Bambang says.

“The price of Premium could be lowered by more than Rp600 per liter,” he said in his office on Monday, January 12, 2015.

Premium price is presently pegged at Rp7,600. Bambang said the prices of global oil and the Mean Oil of Platts (MPOS) since December 2014 had been in the neighborhood of US$50 and US$60 per barrel, respectively.

Bambang explained the US$1 decline in MOPS prices per barrel had pressured fuel prices to decline by Rp50 per liter. “But we have to keep an eye on the movements of the exchange rate,” he said.

Bambang, however, estimated fuel prices would again climb in March—albeit insignificant. He forecasted prices of oil products would not surpass US$70 per barrel till year-end.

Separately, Naryanto Wagimin, the director general of oil and natural gas of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, said the price of diesel fuel, locally known as Solar, would likely drop as well beginning February 1, 2015—although he could not confirm it yet. “We are still calculating it,” he said.

AYU PRIMA SANDI