By Andrea Hargraves 
Gasoline today drops two cents per liter, good news, if, one year ago, Portugal did not rise to another place in the European ranking, becoming the fifth country in the bloc where the most payment for this fuel is.
Everything is due to a price increase of 24.8% last year, in the face of a sharp drop in wages of 7%, which means that the price of gasoline “rose 20 times more” than the Portuguese wage in the past 12 years. Months, according to “Jornal de Notícias”.
“For companies still trying to recover from the epidemic, the temporary exemption from the tax burden on petroleum products was more valuable than the recovery and flexibility plan,” said Luis Miguel Ribeiro, president of the Association of Portugal (AEP), in an interview with the same newspaper, stating that “60% of our exports are by land.”
In April, fuel consumption increased by 59% compared to the same period in 2020, when the country was in a state of confinement, the National Energy Sector Authority said.
The Netherlands still tops the list of the most expensive countries in Europe for supplies, with a price per liter of petrol at 1,781 euros.
In Spain, the average price is 1,350 euros per liter. “The difference compared to Spain still lies mainly in the tax burden, which in Portugal represents about 60% of the final cost of a liter of petrol,” explained “JN”.
“When it leaves the refinery, the price is comparable to that of other countries. The differences are explained by the tax burden and distribution margin, which ends up getting bigger in Portugal as it is a very small and fragmented market due to small filling stations,” says Antonio Compredo, president Portuguese Association of Petroleum Companies (APTRO).
The Apetro leader does not, however, reject the existence of external facts affecting speculation in the markets and the consequent increase in Goods. For example, “The conflict in Israel is having an effect, it leads the markets to expect the situation to worsen,” a bet on rising crude oil prices.