threatens to remain at a high level
Fuel prices drop significantly for the first time
03/17/2022 1:42 p.m
The stop at the petrol pump still doesn’t bring joy, but for the first time since the recent extreme values, the price of fuel has shown a clear decline. But it does not bring real relaxation, experts even warn that prices are now stabilizing.
For the first time since the highs of the past few days, fuel prices have fallen significantly again. The price of diesel fell by 4.2 cents per liter within a day, and Super E10 was 3.3 cents cheaper. As the ADAC announced, the nationwide daily average price for diesel on Wednesday was 2.25 euros per liter. With Super E10 it was 2.159 euros. According to the traffic club, there were also signs of a further, albeit slower, decline on Thursday.
Compared to the level before the start of the Ukraine war, diesel is still almost 59 cents per liter more expensive, E10 just under 41 cents, while the price of crude oil, which has risen sharply in the meantime, was again relatively close to its pre-war value. The ADAC still believes that fuel prices are too high. The current decline must continue. Meanwhile, the fuel subsidy proposed by Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) has been met with criticism from economists. Clemens Fuest, President of the Munich Ifo Institute, told the “Rheinische Post” that it was not the right instrument.
The Ifo Institute does not consider the continued high petrol and diesel prices to be a rarity, despite the significant drop in crude oil prices. If demand on the market continues to be high, prices could stabilize, “for example, because customers expect even higher prices in the future,” said Ifo energy expert Karen Pittel of the “Augsburger Allgemeine” in an interview. “Basically, we are observing this to a certain extent with regard to the demand for heating oil and diesel.” The fact that petrol and diesel prices react asymmetrically to rising and falling crude oil prices is nothing new.
The ADAC fuel market expert, Jürgen Albrecht, contradicts this in part: “It is certainly not new that petrol and oil prices are temporarily decoupled from each other. However, it is very rare and has never happened to such an extreme extent as we have are currently observing,” he told the German Press Agency. “With diesel, because of the similarity to heating oil, this is more common depending on the season – but not as much here as at the moment.”