Fuels: the fall in diesel prices continues

The effects of the release of part of the strategic diesel stocks are being felt a little more at the pump on Friday with the price falling by 19 cents on average in 7,600 of the 10,000 stations, Bercy indicated. For 4,000 of them, the drop exceeded 20 cents per liter, said the Minister of the Economy, Roland Lescure on social networks.

The government began on November 1 to sell barrels of diesel from strategic stocks at cost price, an operation announced in October which will involve ten million barrels and will last for three months. This exceptional measure was decided to deal with the surge in fuel prices and energy in general caused by the war in the Middle East, which is increasing energy poverty in France. Some 3.6 million barrels have been put up for sale to date, or a little more than a third of the planned strategic stocks, Bercy said.

» READ ALSO - Fuels: 6,000 stations out of the 10,000 in the country have already lowered the price of diesel, welcomes Serge Papin A real relief for purchasing power This operation “is a real relief for the purchasing power of French motorists”, estimated the Minister of the Economy, the day after a day of strong mobilization of private sector employees, civil servants and retirees, particularly on the question of purchasing power. The operation concerns the prices of road diesel, those of domestic fuel oil and non-road diesel, used in particular by farmers and construction equipment.

The large distributors (TotalEnergies, E. Leclerc, Coopérative U, Intermarché, etc.) had announced price reductions on October 31, but the smaller ones complained of not having yet benefited from the clearances.

While a liter of diesel was sold on average in the middle of last week at 2.38 euros, it was worth 2.22 euros on Friday, a drop of around 16 cents, according to an analysis by AFP of public data covering 9,197 stations.

Machine-translated from French