Profiting pump holders
Fuel prices will probably rise somewhat in the coming weeks in the run-up to the reversal of the excise duty cut. This is not so much due to higher oil prices, but due to gas station operators responding to the increase in excise duty.
Oil cartel OPEC+ is cutting oil production to prop up prices, but market expert Paul van Selms of consumer collective UnitedConsumers does not expect that this will lead to much more expensive fuel. A much bigger impact will be the increase in excise duties on July 1, which will cause the price of gasoline to shoot up by about 14 cents. Van Selms expects filling station owners to slowly increase prices in the coming weeks in order to make some profit from the price increase themselves. “Motorists will go to the pump en masse in the last days of this month to take advantage of the cheaper fuel,” thinks Van Selms. “It may then be that pumps become empty again. If pump holders are smart, they will increase the price the days before so that they themselves have an even larger margin.”
Van Selms thinks that the limitation of oil production will make petrol more expensive by a few cents per liter at the most in the coming weeks. Saudi Arabia decided at the OPEC+ meeting to voluntarily reduce its own oil production by one million barrels a day next month to prop up the price. The entire oil cartel and its allies also want to produce less oil next year. After the OPEC+ production cut in April, the oil price also rose a bit at first, only to fall again soon afterwards. Van Selms now foresees the same. “That’s probably not the way big oil producers like Saudi Arabia want it to be, but it’s just that OPEC is less powerful now.”
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl