The war in Ukraine is sending fuel prices skyrocketing.
Prices of more than 2 euros per liter are no longer uncommon.
In some cases, an unusual situation has arisen: Diesel fuel has recently become more expensive than Super E10 at many petrol stations.
And this despite the fact that the tax on diesel is lower, which usually results in a significantly lower price at the gas station.
Christian Siedenbiedel
Editor in Business.
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Example Frankfurt am Main: Super E10 now costs an average of 1.899 euros per liter there, while diesel costs 1.901 euros.
Not a huge difference, but it's still unusual for diesel to charge more.
This can be observed at an even higher price level in Constance on Lake Constance, for example: a liter of diesel now costs 2.020 euros there, while a liter of Super E10 costs 2.018 euros.
Gas station leaseholders say they've been in business for 30 years, but they've never seen that.
It's the same in many cities lately.
On a nationwide average, both prices have also come very close to just under 1.90 euros, although Super E10 has so far been slightly more expensive there, 1.893 euros, compared to 1.877 euros per liter for diesel.
In the course of the day, however, the order of prices was at times reversed, even with these nationwide average values: the price curves for diesel and premium petrol, for example, intersected in the daily charts of the Clever Tanken Internet portal, which does not otherwise occur.
18 cent tax benefit for diesel
What might that be related to?
The tax benefit for diesel is actually 18 cents per liter.
The coalition wants to go there, but the relevant regulation has not yet been changed.
The difference in the prices of the two types of fuel at the gas stations varies from time to time, as reported by the ADAC auto club.
In winter, when there is a lot of heating, diesel is a bit more expensive because the production of diesel and heating oil are linked.
In the summer, Super E10 is often more expensive when the travel wave is rolling in many countries.
But the fact that diesel is more expensive after tax than petrol is unusual.
A development that could recently be observed on the international energy markets is that gas oil, a precursor for the production of diesel and heating oil, had risen in price in particular.
Crude oil had also become more expensive in connection with the war in Ukraine.
But the increase in the price of gas oil was even stronger.
The analysts at Commerzbank attributed this to the fact that the market expected that the sanctions against Russian refineries would also have consequences and that such oil products would therefore become more expensive.
Association speaks of "diesel shortage"
At the same time, an unusually strong demand for heating oil was observed among private households.
Oliver Klapschus from the internet portal Heizoel24, to which 500 oil traders report their prices, reported that demand was sometimes four times higher than normal on some days.
The price of heating oil reached its highest level in history at 145.62 euros per 100 liters on Friday.
Along with heating oil, however, diesel seems to have become even more expensive.
There is no import ban on diesel from Russia.
Nevertheless, many dealers are apparently wary of buying diesel from Russia because of the sanctions.
"There is a shortage of diesel, although there is actually enough diesel available," said the managing director of the foreign trade association for mineral oil and energy, Hans Wenck, of the "Mitteldeutsche Zeitung".