Fuel Prices: 95-E10 Unleaded Gasoline Hit Yearly Low

Prices at the pump remain high in absolute terms, but the current downward move is very real. On Monday, November 27, the Ministry of Environmental Protection published average prices per liter of various types of automobile fuel over the past week. Unleaded petrol 95-E10 was trading at €1.78 per liter (-3.6 cents on the previous week), its lowest since the start of the year, while diesel was also at €1.78 per liter (-2 cent).

Discussed? “Firstly, sales at cost by supermarkets, led by Leclerc and Carrefour, who use them as a loss leader,” explains Francis Pousse, president of fuel distributors (excluding supermarkets) within the trade union Mobilians.

Then “low price of a barrel of oil, down to $77” (about 70 euros) last week,” he continues. Moreover, this Monday the decline continued – to $75. Far, very far from $140 in March 2022, at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, when diesel and unleaded 95-E10, in turn, crossed the symbolic level of 2 euros per liter. “Today, if the barrel falls, it is because the United States and China, the leading importers crude oil in the world expressed demand below expected volumes,” explains Francis Puss.

Superethanol fell below the symbolic level of one euro

The good news is that prices may remain at this level, while the meeting of oil-producing countries of the OPEC+ alliance, originally scheduled for last Sunday, has been postponed to Thursday, November 30. This should not lead to a significant change in pump prices, experts say.

Motorists driving on superethanol E85 should definitely find their smile again… After the fuel crossed the symbolic level of 1 euro per liter in January last year and never again falls below it. Last week it was 0.99 euros/liter. And it should continue to fall steadily, while one-year supply contracts are concluded in conditions where the cost of its production has decreased.

Five years later, almost to the day after the start of the Yellow Vest movement, the prices of a few years ago – 1.30 euros per liter of diesel, 1.5 euros per liter of gasoline – remain no less than “tariffs we may never We won’t find any more.” – sighs the gas station attendant. On the forums, many “heavyweights” are nostalgic.

In mid-November, the Leclerc petrol station in Angoulême, Charente, was offering a liter of diesel at €0.719 (while the average price today is €1.78/litre)… but that was a computer error. Several lucky people managed to take advantage of the unexpected discount, but within an hour the error was corrected. To officially find a liter of diesel at this price, you have to go back to 1999!