Enab Baladi, 'Fuel Hike Called Industrial Suicide, Budget Stopgap', May 2026
Source ID
SRC-359
Citation
Enab Baladi, 'Fuel Hike Called Industrial Suicide, Budget Stopgap', May 2026
URL or path
https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2026/05/fuel-hike-called-industrial-suicide-budget-stopgap/; archived capture at https://web.archive.org/web/20260527222246/ that URL; research/SRC-F4_EnabBaladi_fuel_hike_wayback.html
Type
News reporting of an unnamed ministry source
Hierarchy tier
4
Published
2026-05
Accessed
2026-08-22
Snapshot
Retrieved through the Internet Archive on 22 August 2026 after enabbaladi.net returned HTTP 403; capture of 27 May 2026
Claims
Retrieval F4; the 219 million monthly loss
Status
READ
Version history
The register keeps changing after the book is fixed in print. Each entry below was added to this row in the order shown.
RETRIEVED AND READ 22 AUGUST 2026, retrieval F4, through the Internet Archive. IT CONFIRMS THE SOURCE MANUSCRIPT AND ITEMISES THE FIGURE, WHICH THE MANUSCRIPT DOES NOT. Verbatim: 'A source in the Ministry of Energy said in press statements that the state treasury incurred monthly losses exceeding $219 million during the past period in the file of subsidizing oil derivatives, as he put it, as part of its effort not to raise prices, and that these adjustments were delayed as long as possible to ease the burdens on citizens. Regarding the details of the losses, the source explained that DIESEL LOSSES AMOUNT TO $135 MILLION PER MONTH, FUEL OIL $51 MILLION, GASOLINE $23 MILLION, AND GAS $10 MILLION PER MONTH.' THE COMPONENTS FOOT TO THE TOTAL EXACTLY: 135 plus 51 plus 23 plus 10 is 219. In a book about numbers that do not hold, a figure whose parts sum to its whole is worth saying, and this one does. Diesel alone is 62 per cent of the loss. THE PROVENANCE IS WEAK AND MUST TRAVEL WITH IT: it is 'a source in the Ministry of Energy', unnamed, speaking 'in press statements', reported at second hand. It is not a published account, not a budget line and not attributable to a named official. The manuscript's 'An energy ministry source put residual treasury losses at over $219 million a month in May 2026' is an accurate description of exactly that, and the annualisation to roughly 2.6 billion is the book's own multiplication and is labelled as one. THE SOURCE'S OWN CAVEAT, WHICH THE MANUSCRIPT OMITS AND WHICH BEARS ON ANY ANNUALISATION: the adjustment 'is linked to global oil prices and may change at any time'. A monthly loss that moves with the oil price cannot simply be multiplied by twelve, and the sentence that does so says which assumption it is making. The same source frames the price rise as guaranteeing 'citizens the continuation of supply and service provision'.