Fuel prices drop next week (diesel 12 cents cheaper)

Here comes good news for Portuguese drivers. Fuel prices will fall next week: “The development of quotations in euros indicates a decrease in the price of a liter by 4 cents per liter for gasoline and 12.5 cents per liter for diesel,” a source from one of the major national oil companies told Multinews.

By the same token, prices of gas stations next to supermarkets follow the trend of the market. “The trend this week will be for a decrease of 0.0274 euros in gasoline and 0.1020 euros in diesel,” another source said.

Lower oil prices contribute to lower prices in international markets. The barrel of Brent crude, a benchmark for Europe, reversed the upward trend this week, with the possibility of a decline in the armed confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, after the Kremlin revealed that it would reduce military activity in the vicinity of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, as well as in Chernihiv. The downward trend emerged yesterday afternoon, after the announcement that the President of the United States would release up to one million barrels of oil per day from the country’s strategic reserve to stop the rise in prices.

Since the start of the year, fuel prices have risen 12 times and fallen only once, according to DGEG. During this period, the price of diesel increased by 51 cents a liter, while gasoline prices increased by 37 cents. This means that filling a 60-liter tank with diesel costs 30 euros more than it did 12 weeks ago. To fill up the fuel tank, it costs 22 euros more than in the first week of January.

DGEG data shows that the average price of a simple diesel in Portugal currently costs €2,010 per liter, while the price of a simple petrol 95 is €2,038. The Portuguese never paid so much for every liter of this fuel.

The latest European Commission fuel bulletin indicates that Portugal ranks seventh in the ranking of countries with the most expensive fuels in the EU, with 95 gasoline costing 10 cents more than the European average and 21 cents more than Spain.

The price difference between Portugal and Spain results from the tax burden, because without taxes, each 95 liter of gasoline would cost 1,017 cents, which is less than 1,030 cents in Spain.