Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that under the influence of the Autumn and Winter seasons, imports of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the fourth quarter of 2009 increased substantially by 41.0% from the previous quarter to 11,240 tonnes and the average price also rose by 6.9%; consumption of LPG totalled 10,716 tonnes, up by 28.3%. For the whole year of 2009, imports (39,542 tonnes) and consumption (39,740 tonnes) of LPG went down by 1.2% and 1.0% respectively year-on-year. In the fourth quarter of 2009, imports of Electricity decreased by 19.6% over the previous quarter to 681 million kWh, accounting for 80.2% of the available supply; meanwhile, local generation of electricity dropped significantly by 46.8% quarter-to-quarter to 180 million kWh and consumption of electricity decreased by 25.2% to 820 million kWh. In 2009, generation of electricity (1,466 million kWh) increased by 21.1%, whereas imports of electricity (2,227 million kWh) went down by 3.6%. For the whole year of 2009, consumption of electricity (3,463 million kWh) increased by 4.6% year-on-year, of which consumption by the gaming sector surged by 78.2% to 1,046 million kWh, while that by the construction sector and industrial production dropped markedly by 67.2% and 20.2% respectively. Gasoline imports in the fourth quarter of 2009 dropped by 6.5% over the preceding quarter to 17.64 million litres, while the average price of imports rose by 7.1%; consumption of Gasoline totalled 17.09 million litres, down by 8.4%. In 2009, imports (68.24 million litres) and consumption (68.93 million litres) of Gasoline increased by 8.9% and 8.5% respectively year-on-year. On account of higher prices of imports, the average selling price of Bottled LPG and Centralized LPG went up by 7.7% and 7.0% respectively in the fourth quarter of 2009, and that of Unleaded Gasoline also rose slightly by 0.5%. In 2009, the average price of all types of fuels fell back along with the lower oil prices, with that of Bottled LPG and Unleaded Gasoline falling by 20.7% and 19.8% respectively year-on-year. At the end of the fourth quarter, stock of LPG totalled 2,769 tonnes, up by 25.0% quarter-to-quarter; stock of Gasoline increased by 3.5% to 2.77 million litres.
