Despite the recent escalation in the Ukraine crisis, fuel prices in Germany have fallen slightly on a weekly basis.

This was announced by the ADAC car club on Wednesday after its weekly evaluation of the prices at more than 14,000 petrol stations.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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Super E10 therefore cost 1.741 euros per liter on a nationwide daily average on Tuesday.

That was 0.4 cents less than a week earlier.

The price of diesel fell by 0.7 cents to 1.655 euros per liter.

After all, it was the first decline in the weekly survey for both fuels since the end of 2021. Before that, fuel prices had risen for eight weeks in a row and had always reached new all-time highs.

Crude oil prices drop again

The decline comes as a surprise, because the price of oil, usually the most important driver of fuel prices, temporarily reached its highest level since 2014 on Tuesday as a result of the escalation in Ukraine and was only just below the $100 a barrel mark (159 liter barrels ) for the North Sea variety Brent.

On Wednesday, however, there was a slight relaxation on the oil market, the Brent price was only a good 96 dollars over the course of the day.

However, further price fluctuations due to the Ukraine crisis can certainly be expected.

It is still unclear whether the oil states of OPEC will at some point boost oil production in response to the higher price.

There had been speculation on the oil market that this could be triggered if the price of oil exceeds the $100 mark.

However, Giovanni Staunovo, oil analyst at UBS, is skeptical.

He refers to statements by OPEC that they see the high oil price as a result of geopolitical tensions, not as a result of the fundamental factors of supply and demand, which necessitate a reaction from the oil countries.

What's behind the price drop?

In its daily market report, Commerzbank writes that the biggest panic about a further escalation of the conflict appears to be over for the time being.

The calming of the market is likely to be closely related to the fact that the sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia so far should not lead to an impairment of energy supplies.

A senior US State Department official said yesterday that the sanctions that have already been adopted and those that may be in the near future are not and will not be aimed at oil and gas supplies.

Therefore, according to this official, there would be no need for higher prices for the market right now.

"From our point of view, however, there is a risk that Russia will reduce deliveries on its own initiative in retaliation for the sanctions," write the analysts at Commerzbank.

Finally, the former Russian Prime Minister Medvedev promised the Europeans significantly higher gas prices.

Who knows what that means for oil.

In addition to further developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the oil market is also looking at the nuclear negotiations with Iran: "An agreement could be reached shortly, which would open up the possibility of Iranian oil exports returning soon," says Commerzbank: "The additional oil from Iran should ease the tension on the oil market."