The liter of gasoline exceeds 1.70 euros for the first time in a year after accumulating seven consecutive weeks on the rise. The diesel also continues to climb and is already at 1.60 euros
The price escalation of fuels does not stop. With the Spanish roads with millions of extra trips due to the summer holidays, fuel prices continue to rise and aggravate the blow to drivers’ pockets after seven consecutive weeks of increases in the height of the summer season, according to the price records of the European Commission.
The price of gasoline has risen to exceed 1.70 euros per liter on average for the first time in a year, after a new rise of another 1% last week, according to the latest data from the European Union Oil Bulletin. Gasoline had not registered an expensive price in Spanish service stations since the beginning of August last year, but then the mandatory discount of 20 cents per liter approved by the Government was still applied.
The price of diesel, the most widely used automotive fuel in the Spanish market, also continues to rise, and last week reached 1.60 euros per liter on average (0.9% more), standing at levels similar to those of six months ago. Diesel prices have been continuously lower than those of gasoline since mid-February, when the exceptional opposite scenario that had begun in August 2022 broke.
Up all summer
Gasoline and diesel have been marking consecutive price increases throughout the summer, a period in which long-distance journeys by private drivers skyrocket to go to and from their holiday destinations.
The last drop in cost was recorded at the end of June, and since then gasoline accumulates a increase of 7.34% (from 1.58 euros, 12 cents more per liter) and the diesel of something more than 11.3% (from 1.43 euros per liter, 17 cents more), pressured by the rise in international oil prices due to the cut in production agreed by OPEC and other external partners, mainly Russia.
With current prices, filling an average tank of 55 liters of gasoline costs about 94 euros, compared to 87.3 euros – about 6.7 euros more – a year ago, including then the discount of 20 cents per liter that was in force. In the case of diesel, filling an average 55-liter tank currently costs about 88 euros, barely 30 cents less than the 88.3 euros it cost in the same period of 2022.
Strong rise since the beginning of the year
The rises in fuel prices have also been considerable since the beginning of the year. Gasoline accumulates a rise of 23.6% (from 1.38 euros, 32 cents per liter more) and diesel is up almost 10% so far this year (from about 1.45 euros, 15 cents more).
The sale of fuel at Spanish gas stations has been marked since the beginning of the year by the end, in January, of the discount of 20 cents per liter that the Government had set for stop the escalation in full energy crisis and the subsequent withdrawal or reduction of additional rebates (usually another 10 cents per litre) that the big oil companies had been applying in their networks of service stations.
After the continuous upturns, the price of both fuels is consolidating well above the levels they reached before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine -which began on February 24, 2022- and which in the case of diesel was 1,479 euros per liter and gasoline was sold at 1,594 euros per liter. However, both gasoline and diesel are still far from the historical peaks that they reached more than a year ago, when in July gasoline reached 2.141 euros and diesel 2.1 euros per liter.