BOTTLED gas is set to go up in price from tomorrow (Tuesday) by nearly 5% - its first price hike since January.
Standard orange 12.5-kilo butane bottles, currently costing €13.27, will rise to €13.92 after a series of price reductions over the last six months.
The raw material price review saw it drop by 4.9% in March and May, breaking with the upward trend seen over the winter.
November brought an increase of 2.1% and January, 1.6%.
The most expensive it has been in the last three-and-a-half years is €17.50, in March 2015, and the cheapest in this time was between July and September 2016, when it fell to €11.27.
Only orange bottles are affected by State-controlled prices, since manufacturers and retailers of the lighter-weight silver-coloured gas bottles are permitted to set their own.
Those whose orange gas bottles are delivered via a contract with a supplier such as REPSOL will normally pay a few euros more than the retail price, to cover the cost of transport to their homes.
Gas bottles continue to be widely used in Spain to fuel ovens, hobs, barbecues and heaters, since mains gas is mostly only available in large urban areas.