19 cents more for a liter of unleaded 95-E10. Fuel prices at the pump skyrocketed last week in France, with an average of more than 1.80 euros for both gasoline and diesel (which is even close to 1.90 euros on average). And the trend doesn’t appear ready to reverse, according to observers.
The end of the State bonuses and Totalenergies
The end of the sales on December 31 heralded such an increase. In effect, the State discount of 10 cents per liter has disappeared, but also that of Totalenergies (10 cents). However, around a third of the 11,000 French service stations belong to the Total network. The average price increase is therefore more significant than the expected 10-cent mechanical jump.
The implementation of the check for 100 euros from January 16, if it should be the equivalent of a discount of 10 cents a year for a driver who travels some 12,000 kilometers a year, will not affect all motorists. Some, therefore, will not see their plenary session accompanied by aid as in 2022.
Crude prices stable for several weeks
However, this strong increase occurs in a context of relative price stability at the international level. Last week, according to official figures communicated by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (figures as of Friday), the barrel stood at 78.8 dollars, almost 3 dollars less than the previous week.
“It is very difficult for me to predict what international crude oil prices will do, we see that we are at a price plateau, therefore, a crude oil price that has changed relatively little for a month,” Olivier Gantois explains on BFMTV on Tuesday. , President of the French Union of Petroleum Industries (UFIP). A favorable situation to contain the rise in prices? Not necessarily. “Currently we are at $79 per barrel, which was the price at the beginning of 2022, just before the war in Ukraine,” recalls Olivier Gantois.
“When we think about the outlook, we first tell ourselves that there is no reason for prices to go down because we still have this war in the Ukraine involving the world’s third largest oil producer,” he continues.
However, the global economic slowdown is moderating crude oil prices.
The embargo on Russian oil products
But the war in Ukraine weighs on prices at gas stations in another way: the application of the embargo on Russian oil products, which will take effect on February 5. Therefore, for several months, distributors have been looking to diversify their sources of supply.
“Something happened to all fuel importers: we have the obligation to supply ourselves excluding Russian fuel, excluding Russian diesel,” explained Michel-Edouard Leclerc. this weekend on RTL. We are in a period where we are in the process of recharging our supply sources and at the moment it is obviously more expensive to go buy elsewhere, to go buy diesel in the Gulf or in the Gulf of Mexico for US diesel.” .
However, the concrete consequences do not yet seem to apply to the price at the pump, according to Michel-Edouard Leclerc. For Olivier Gantois, this change in the sources of supply should not even be felt so much in the wallet of motorists.
“Currently in the dynamics of the oil markets, there is no reason for prices to go down, mainly because the war in Ukraine continues, because one of the belligerents is the third world producer and although we think that the embargo on Russian oil products will not have impact on the supply of Europe, and in particular that of France, the fact is that this event means that we will remain at relatively high prices”, sums up the president of the UFIP.
According to the real-time comparison site Carbu.com, the price of a liter of diesel was on average in France this Tuesday at 1,917 euros.
Source: BFM TV
