A timely drop. At the time of vacation departures, fuel prices continue to fall. According to the latest data released this Monday by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and arrested on July 7, the liter of 95-E10 without lead fell below the symbolic bar of 1.80 euros, up to 1.7895 on average. , which has not happened since the end of December 2022. The same trend of diesel, with an average price that falls 0.9 cents, to 1.6658 euros per liter on average.
It is not enough to be fully satisfied, according to the CLCV, which considers the magnitude of the fall in prices insufficient. In a vitriolic press release published Tuesday, the consumer advocacy association points to the “explosive” monthly gross margins of large fuel retailers since January and therefore calls for “an immediate cost price deal.”
“Exceptionally high” margins
If the CLCV recognizes a “fall” in the gross margin -which is none other than the difference between the price without fuel and the price at the refinery outlet- of the distributors since May, this is today “too high” while “still has not reached the normal range of 15-18 cents” per liter.
Based on data from the French Union of Petroleum Industries (Ufip), the CLCV points out that the gross margin of large retailers on unleaded 95-E5 was 25.4 cents per liter in June, compared to 23.4 diesel cents.
“After a period in which distributors had very low margins, even with losses in 2022, there have been exceptionally high gross margins since the beginning of 2023,” laments the association.
The CLCV calls for “cost price operations”
For the CLCV, “the discretion, even the total silence” of the large retailers on fuel prices “says a lot about the reconstitution of margins on an essential and indispensable product for all French people”.
“Retailers and large oil groups continue to say that they are betting on purchasing power. It is time for this to be translated into action,” he adds, before calling on the sector to lower its “prices” and “margins” through the start-up of “immediate operations at cost price so that households do not click when they go on vacation”.
The association believes that this type of operation would be all the more justified since “the pretexts used by the distributors” in May during the first CLCV alert “are really no longer relevant.”
“There are no more strikes to interrupt logistics. In addition, the prices of biofuels have been falling sharply for almost a year”, but the president of the professional union Ufip highlighted in a recent statement “the incorporation of biofuels to partly explain these margins”. And this same president did not rule out “a phenomenon of ‘reconstruction of the margin’ of the distribution,” recalls the CLCV.
Source: BFM TV
