Fuel price cuts are unlikely in 2011, although the year began with the implementation of the liberalization of petroleum products market in Serbia, as world crude oil prices are expected to continue rising, an expert on oil, professor at the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad Slobodan Sokolovic, told Tanjug.

The forecasts regarding the fuel prices are not optimistic because bigger fluctuations and drop in oil prices on world markets are not likely this year.

Stressing that it was futile to predict the prices at the beginning of the year, Sokolovic added that, according to available data, this year a possible price of oil in the world markets could be about USD 100 per barrel.

Regardless of the beginning of implementation of the liberalization of petroleum market in Serbia, the first indicators suggest that the country's market was poorly organized, he said.

“For years we talk about market liberalization, but it appears that participants are not actually ready for liberalization,” Sokolovic noted, but added, however, that retail prices of petroleum products in Serbia were among the lowest in the region at the moment, higher only than in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Answering the question what should be done to enable the participants welcome the liberalization more readily, Sokolovic said the way a company gets petroleum products in the markets was important, that is, whether companies signed spot or long term contracts with manufacturers.

“We still have the problem of disorderly market in Serbia in which participants have not reduced their operating costs or expanded the range of their offers,” he said.

Sokolovic said it was important that Serbia should implement full monitoring of the quality of the derivatives, which should be based on European practices.