Many – especially motorists – will have noticed: fuel prices have increased again. They now often exceed two francs per liter and it hasn’t happened since last autumn. The geopolitical situation remains tense and the price of oil, including derived products, is rising.
Since January, the price of crude oil has only grown, especially in the last month, now hovering around 87 dollars a barrel, a value similar to that of last October, when prices at petrol pumps were as high as they are today. But it is not all attributable to international tensions, primarily the one that has skyrocketed since this weekend between Israel and Iran.
“The United States currently has fairly low reserves – he explains to RSI Luca Giampietro, of the Service Station Association committee – this means that they are purchasing product. Furthermore, the OPEC member producers have not increased the production quota, so that we find ourselves with a fairly ‘short’ market: the demand is quite high compared to a production that remains rather low. Add to this the geopolitical situation and we find ourselves with fairly high prices.”
The problem affects the whole of Switzerland, as can be seen from the graph of average prices. The regional or station-to-station differences are in fact minimal. “Each market player sets prices as they see fit – continues Giampietro –, there may be differences on individual sales points perhaps because the stations have lower structural costs or have already amortized investments, which can translate into differences in the order of a few cents. In any case, the impression is that today the market in Ticino, but also in Switzerland, is quite level, also because there is no longer much room for manoeuvre”.
The differences, recorded on Friday, do not actually exceed 10 cents for petrol and 4 for diesel.
