Fuel was more expensive at gas stations in March than ever before, at least in nominal terms. According to the ÖAMTC motorists’ club, premium petrol and diesel cost an average of just under 1.78 and 1.87 euros per liter. Year-on-year, prices rose by around half or more.
According to the ÖAMTC broadcast on Wednesday, the price of diesel was 61 percent and that of super petrol was 46 percent compared to March 2021, once more nominally, without taking annual inflation into account. According to Statistics Austria, this was 2.8 percent in the previous year – with the fuel price itself being a “significant driver of inflation in Austria”, as the broadcast states.
According to the ÖAMTC, the prices for diesel fuel and premium petrol rose by around 50 and 40 cents per liter from the beginning to the middle of March. According to this calculation, an average tank filling (50 liters) cost 25 or 20 euros more in the middle of the month than at the beginning of March. At the end of last month diesel and petrol were around 1.90 and 1.75 euros per liter respectively. Prices had previously exceeded the two euro mark.
Gap between crude oil and gas station prices
Once once more, the motorists’ club referred to the price gap between the crude oil market and gas station prices. “Since the beginning of the year, the prices for a barrel of OPEC oil in euros have risen by around 41 percent,” according to the ÖAMTC. In the same period, the prices at the petrol pumps – excluding mineral oil tax (MöSt) and value added tax (USt) – “for example for diesel, however, rose much more sharply by around 53 percent”.
In view of this, the ÖAMTC welcomes “the fact that the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (BWB), but also the German Federal Cartel Office and other comparable institutions will take a close look at the fuel market,” it said in the broadcast. “Politicians at national and European level are required to put a stop to price capades, as we have observed in the past few weeks,” stated Martin Grasslober, transport management expert at the ÖAMTC.
