“We have price differences that are unbearable”: as the price of diesel begins to fall at the pump, independent stations denounce the priority given to large distributors in the destocking of strategic reserves

The drop in diesel prices is starting to materialize in certain stations on Sunday but is not yet visible everywhere and a certain "disparity" will persist depending on the brands, with an expected drop of "around 12 cents at the pump", according to the professional oil tankers' union Ufip. At midday on Sunday, a liter of diesel was at just over 2.3515 euros on average according to an AFP calculation based on some 8,600 stations.

That is to say a slight drop compared to the 2.37909 euros recorded on Saturday around 6:15 p.m. The government announced in October that diesel prices would fall by 12 to 18 cents for consumers from November 1 thanks to the sale at cost price to distributors of barrels from strategic stocks. The volumes are destocked by Sagess, which manages these reserves for the State.

“You do not necessarily have a drop today (Sunday) among all distributors but it will happen by tomorrow (Monday)”, assured AFP Blandine Ruty, general secretary of Ufip (French Union of Petroleum Industries) Energy and Mobility. “Sagess over the last two days has put these transfer contracts in place; by the time there is a signature and things are regularized with each of the distributors, it may take a little more time,” she explains. “Everyone has their own commercial policy” Bercy assured Sunday, in a press release, that “all stations will see their prices drop in the coming days”.

“We are not seeing a uniform price drop because everyone has their own commercial policy,” also underlines Blandine Ruty. Thus, “there is a disparity but we must say that there will be a drop of around 12 cents at the pump”. Part of the sector, however, complains of not having benefited from these clearances at the same time as supermarkets or Totalenergies.

“Strategic stocks were given priority to the largest” and “we are taking time to release them for the smallest, which will further delay the application in stations, particularly rural ones, of these 12 to 18 cents” reduction, regrets Francis Pousse, of the Mobilians network, which represents independent service stations in particular. “We have price differences that are unbearable,” he laments, believing that the government’s commitments “do not correspond to actions” and saying he is “very angry.”

Machine-translated from French