If you have to refuel your vehicle, wait a few days if possible! According to Michel-Edouard Leclerc, as of Monday, the price of diesel at the pump should drop by 35 cents per liter and by 8 to 10 cents for the Super 95.
“It’s a crazy market. I don’t understand it,” recognizes Michel-Edouard Leclerc, CEO of the E.Leclerc group and second-largest fuel buyer in France on BFM TV. A week ago, he was in front of the cameras to announce an increase of 8 to 10 cents in prices at the pump.
“The crude oil market has been losing for two days, the euro is rising once morest the dollar? So I’m telling you, I’m not a real prophet, it’s just that the prices we’re going to charge gas stations are mechanical. There will be a drop this weekend, and in any case effective in service stations from Monday, ”he explains.
For Michel-Edouard Leclerc, this drop should occur among all distributors. “A week ago, we were for diesel at 1.93 euros in average price in France with differences of 10 cents between regions. In some regions, especially in the East, it has gone to 2.25 or 2.27 and it will go down by 35 cents per litre, ”he explains.
How to explain this fluctuation? In general, according to an estimate by the Banque de France, it takes regarding ten days between a rise in the price of crude oil and an impact at the pump. But the distributors actually play on another lever: the Platts, which serves as a reference to set the price of fuel at the pump.
“I find that there is no rationality in this market”
When the price of crude oil is on an upward trend, distributors rush to the Platts before paying for fuels with oil at its highest. But suddenly, this increase in demand immediately drives up prices on the Platts. And that increase trickles down to filling stations faster than it takes time to physically transport the oil. This is what happened in recent days when technically there is no supply problem.
“I find that there is no rationality in this market. There is stock, there is no less oil today, even the Russians still sell diesel. There was no objective reason for it to flare up, the markets are speculating, ”adds Michel-Edouard Leclerc.
Such a mechanism is substantially identical to what happens on wheat. The rise in wheat prices has led to a rise in flour prices even though the wheat harvest has not yet taken place. Today, the situation is different. For five days, the price of Brent has fallen by 5%. At the same time, over this period, the euro recovered 0.3% once morest the dollar.
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However, this drop in price might only be temporary. In addition, Michel-Édouard Leclerc once once more invited motorists to carefully compare the prices charged by distributors via applications. “A distributor who is not expensive will sell more and will have to renew his stocks more quickly at a more expensive price. And sometimes it’s going to be more expensive for a few hours than the one that usually has higher prices. »
