Diesel prices fall to lowest in more than a year, helping slow inflation

Madrid (EFE).- Fuel prices in Spain continued to fall last week, with an average of 1,437 euros paid for a litre of diesel, down 1.1% and the lowest level in more than a year, helping fuel prices in Spain to rise following a recent slowdown in inflation.

Thus, diesel fuel recorded its sixth consecutive fall, while the average price of gasoline recorded its seventh consecutive decline, falling by 1.14%, to 1,565 euros, according to the European Union (EU) Oil Bulletin published this Thursday, with data from 11,400 Spanish service stations from August 20 to 26.

According to the history prepared by EFE, over the last month, gasoline has fallen by 2.86% and diesel by 3.1%. Moreover, this latter fuel has reached its lowest average price since the first week of July 2023, when it also cost 1,437 euros.

In turn, petrol has not been this cheap since the first week of last February, when it cost 1.56 euros.

Lower prices help curb inflation

The release of these prices coincided with preliminary data on the consumer price index released this morning by the National Statistics Institute (INE), according to which inflation in August fell to 2.2% year-on-year.

The rebound is six tenths lower than last month (2.8%) and the lowest since June 2023 (1.9%), said INE, which showed a slowdown in prices due to lower fuel prices.

Compared to the same dates last year, the average cost of diesel is now 10.8% lower, and gasoline is 9% lower.

Since the beginning of this year, gasoline has risen in price by 1.95%, and diesel fuel by 3.8%.

At last week’s prices, filling an average 55-litre tank with petrol cost 86.08 euros; when using diesel fuel, around 79.03 euros were paid.

On the historical highs of June 2022

Compared to the historical highs of June 2022, gasoline is now 19.37% cheaper, and the second fuel is 24.37% cheaper.

For another week, fuel prices in Spain were below the average in the 27 EU countries, where petrol cost 1,682 euros per litre and diesel 1,557 euros.

They are also lower than in the eurozone as a whole, where the average price of a litre of petrol was €1,728 and diesel €1,578.

According to the holding company Grupo Moure, which operates in the energy sector, there are many reasons for the drop in fuel prices during the summer.

These range from supply and demand to the policies of major oil producing countries, geopolitical factors, as well as refinancing, distribution and marketing costs.

Grupo Moure CEO Manel Montero, however, admits that the behavior of fuel prices at this time of year is traditionally “totally at odds” with what is happening today; and remember that in 2023 “they only started to regress in September.”