Oil prices rose on Tuesday.

For the time being, they did not continue the losses that had started on Monday evening.

In the morning, a barrel (159 liters) of North Sea Brent sometimes cost $82.97.

That was 29 cents more than the day before.

The price for a barrel of the American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) variety rose by around 25 cents to $77.18 at times.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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At the start of the week, there were strong price fluctuations on the oil market, with prices coming under strong pressure on Monday evening after a sharp rise on Monday morning.

Market observers referred to an extensive EU embargo on crude oil from Russia and a price cap for Russian oil by the G7 countries, as well as the corona policy in China, which has repeatedly caused price movements on the oil market.

It is still somewhat unclear at the moment whether and when the economy in China will pick up again after the pandemic in such a way that it will ensure higher oil demand from the important economy.

Heating oil and petrol slightly cheaper

The price of heating oil fell slightly on Tuesday to an average of 120.48 euros per 100 liters.

That's a low price compared to most phases during the Ukraine war - but quite high compared to previous years.

Gasoline prices, which according to the ADAC were still up around noon on Monday, fell slightly on Monday on a daily average.

Diesel cost an average of 1.814 euros, Super E10 1.744 euros per liter.

The difference between the prices for diesel and petrol has thus fallen again somewhat, to 7 cents.

According to reports from motorists in the past few days, Super E10 has already cost more than diesel at individual filling stations.

Until the Ukraine war, diesel had cost less than Super E10 because of lower taxation.

The war reversed that.

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.

The special situation with diesel is changing

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.

However, one can only intervene if there is an initial suspicion of anti-competitive behavior, said Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt: “But high prices and high company profits are not sufficient evidence in themselves.” In any case, there should be further investigations, for example at the wholesale level.