Status: 03/29/2023 3:44 p.m
At the pumps, the development before the Easter holidays is inconsistent. While the price of petrol goes up, diesel gets a little cheaper. In the short term, fuel prices could continue to rise.
The price difference between diesel and Super E10 has continued to widen. This shows the current ADAC evaluation of fuel prices in Germany. According to this, a liter of Super E10 costs 1.769 euros on average nationwide, which is 3.4 cents more than in the previous week. Diesel, on the other hand, has become cheaper by 0.6 cents to 1.689 euros per liter. The price difference between Super E10 and diesel is now eight cents, which is double the price of the previous week.
Significantly lower taxes on diesel
Market experts speak of a normalization in view of the growing price difference between diesel and Super E10. After all, there are significantly lower taxes on diesel. While the energy tax on petrol is 65.45 cents per liter, it is only 47.04 cents per liter on diesel, i.e. 18.41 cents less. This also shows that the price of diesel still has room to go down.
Especially since the seasonal effects with the end of the heating period tend to speak for falling diesel prices. In recent months, the strong demand for heating oil has also pulled up the price of diesel. In principle, diesel and heating oil are the same product, they are only declared differently as heating oil and diesel.
“Driving Season” as a price driver
But with the absence of an energy crisis in Europe and the end of the heating period, the prices for heating oil have fallen sharply; in March, 100 liters of heating oil cost less than 100 euros for the first time since the outbreak of the Ukraine war. Last autumn, the price of heating oil rose to a record high of over 170 euros.
However, it is also a fact that another seasonal effect in the coming months tends to speak in favor of rising fuel prices. After all, the period before Easter and up to Pentecost is usually accompanied by a sharp increase in traffic. This “driving season” is in turn reflected in rising oil and fuel prices.
Pipeline problems reduce crude oil supply
Also in view of the current developments on the oil market, diesel and petrol still have upside potential: Reports about the closure of an oil pipeline from Iraq to Turkey, through which 450,000 barrels (159 liters each) of crude oil flow per day, are currently supporting oil prices. An arbitration court upheld a lawsuit by the central government in Baghdad over the weekend. The latter had indicated that the Kurdish regional government’s oil deliveries via this pipeline had not been agreed with it.
“However, the failures should only be temporary,” emphasizes Carsten Fritsch, commodity expert at Commerzbank. Representatives of the Kurdish regional government wanted to travel to Baghdad to find a solution for resuming oil supplies.
In the medium term, however, it is crucial for oil and thus fuel prices whether the banking problems in the USA could lead to the world’s largest economy falling into a credit crunch and thus into a recession. That would drastically reduce the demand for the raw material and thus permanently depress prices.