The prices at Germany's gas stations have recently fallen again.

The price for Super E10 fell below EUR 1.70 per liter for the first time in a long time on Tuesday during the course of the day.

This is reported by the internet portal Clever Tanken.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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The daily average cost of fuel on Tuesday was 1.739 euros per liter - that was around 4.6 cents per liter less than a week ago, as the ADAC car club announced on Wednesday based on its weekly evaluation of the prices of 14,000 petrol stations.

Diesel fuel was even cheaper on a weekly basis by 5.6 cents, to 1.843 euros.

Relaxation on the crude oil market

The ADAC attributes the price development, which is pleasing from the driver's point of view, in particular to the easing that has taken place on the crude oil market in recent weeks.

The price for a barrel (barrel of around 159 litres) of North Sea Brent is now around 85 dollars, after being around ten dollars higher a good two weeks ago.

The exchange rate of the dollar to the euro has recently shifted somewhat in favor of motorists, reports the car club.

The price of heating oil, on the other hand, was listed according to figures on the internet platform Heizoel24 on Wednesday again slightly higher than on Tuesday, at around 121 euros for 100 liters.

Overall, however, heating oil has become significantly cheaper again compared to the high values ​​of September and early October.

This is also related to an easing of the energy situation overall and the gas supply situation.

These consequences of the slightly cheaper oil play a central role in the recent fall in inflation rates in Germany and the euro area: the inflation rate in Germany fell from 10.4 to 10 percent in November, and in the euro area from 10.6 to 10 percent.

The decline in energy prices was the most important factor.

Diesel still more expensive than Super E10

Crude oil is now cheaper than at the start of the Ukraine war.

The price for Super E10 is also back to pre-war levels, but not for diesel.

Diesel is still around 10 cents a liter more expensive than Super E10.

The lower taxation of around 20 cents per liter actually ensures that diesel is the cheaper fuel.

That only changed in the course of the Ukraine war.

The mineral oil companies initially gave the reason that a lot of diesel and its precursors had previously been imported directly from Russia.

Later, during the tank discount period from June to August, the price for Super fell more because the tax relief for Super was greater than for diesel.

However, this reason no longer applies when the tank discount ends in September.

Recently it was said that diesel is particularly expensive because companies that normally produce with gas but could also use heating oil are now storing large quantities of heating oil as a precaution.

However, the production of heating oil is closely related to that of diesel, so that the price of heating oil has risen with it.

However, the ADAC said that this justification would soon no longer work either, at some point all the companies that wanted it would have to stock up on heating oil.

A completely different explanation for the high fuel prices was the high profits that mineral oil companies were partly making in the refineries.

The Federal Cartel Office took a closer look at this market and in an interim report was quite critical of the competitive situation.

However, no indications of violations of competition law such as concrete cartel agreements were found.

The investigation shows that the decoupling of petrol station prices from the price of crude oil cannot be attributed solely to cost increases.

This is contradicted by the fact that most mineral oil companies made very large profits with their refineries during this time.

There are already "structural problems" on the market.

But you can only intervene

What's next for the price of crude oil?

One of the hardest to predict factors in inflation is the price of crude oil.

Above all, concerns about a global recession, which could lead to less oil demand, had caused the price to fall recently.

This also included the difficult political situation in China.

However, if the recession turns out to be less severe than originally thought, this could boost the price of oil again.

Even if the oil organization OPEC plus, which meets next weekend, cuts oil production further, this could push up oil prices again.

The EU embargo and G7 price cap for Russian oil could also cause prices to rise again, at least temporarily.

Russia has announced that it no longer wants to supply oil to countries participating in the price cap.

In any case, in a market report for the coming weeks, Commerzbank expects the price of crude oil to rise to around $95 a barrel for the North Sea Brent variety.