A proposal to temporarily charge a tax on the oil refinery margin appears to be a last-ditch effort by the government to control soaring energy prices, but major refineries question the move aimed at trimming some of their profits.
Thai Oil Plc (TOP) and IRPC Plc insisted the refinery margin, which is based on prices of refined oil in Singapore, does not represent the "real" profits of oil refineries and warned against any attempts to intervene in oil refinery margin, according to their statements on Thursday.
