Prices rose sharply at the pumps last week. The end of discounts but also the international situation weighs on the wallet of motorists.
19 cents more on a liter of 95-E10 unleaded. Fuel prices at the pump jumped last week in France, with an average above 1.80 euro on gasoline as on diesel (which even comes close to 1.90 euro on average). And the trend does not seem ready to be reversed, according to observers.
The end of rebates from the State and Totalenergies
The end of rebates on December 31 foreshadowed such an increase. The discount of 10 centimes per liter from the State has indeed disappeared, but that of Totalenergies as well (10 centimes). However, about 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 mechanical jump of 10 cents.
The implementation of the check for 100 euros from January 16, if it must be the equivalent of a discount of 10 cents over the year for a driver traveling around 12,000 kilometers per year, will not concern all motorists. Some will therefore not see their full accompanied by aid as in 2022.
Crude prices stable for several weeks
However, this sharp increase appears in a context of relative price stability internationally. Last week, according to official figures communicated by the Ministry of Ecological Transition (figures as of Friday), the barrel was at 78.8 dollars, down nearly 3 dollars compared to the previous week.
“It is very difficult for me to predict what international crude oil prices will do, we see that we are on a price plateau, so a price of crude oil which has changed relatively little for a month”, explains this Tuesday on BFMTV Olivier Gantois, 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 dollars per barrel, which was the price at the start of 2022, just before the war in Ukraine”, recalls Olivier Gantois.
“When we think about the prospects, we first say to ourselves that there is no reason for prices to fall because we still have this war in Ukraine which involves the third largest producer of crude oil in the world”, he continues.
The global economic slowdown is moderating crude prices, however.
The embargo on Russian petroleum products
But the war in Ukraine weighs on prices at the pump in another way: the implementation of the embargo on Russian petroleum products, an embargo which will come into force on February 5. For several months, distributors have therefore been seeking to diversify their sources of supply.
“Something happened to all fuel importers: we have an 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 sources of supply and for the moment it is obviously more expensive to go and buy elsewhere, to go and buy diesel in the Gulf or in the Gulf of Mexico for American 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 sources of supply should not even be felt so much on the portfolio of motorists.
“Currently on the dynamics of the oil markets, there is no reason for prices to fall, mainly because the war in Ukraine is continuing, because one of the belligerents is the third largest producer in the world and even if we think that the embargo on Russian petroleum products will have no impact on the supply of Europe, and in particular on that of France, the fact remains that this event means that we will remain at relatively high prices”, summarizes the president of the UFIP.
According to the real-time comparison site Carbu.comthe price of a liter of diesel was on average in France on Tuesday at 1.917 euros.
