Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi said that long-term, Malta had lower pump prices than the EU average. Photo: Jason BorgEnergy Minister Konrad Mizzi said that long-term, Malta had lower pump prices than the EU average. Photo: Jason Borg

Fuel prices throughout the EU have continued to drop over the past weeks, the only exception being Malta.

While fuel prices remained fixed here at €1.44 a litre for unleaded petrol and €1.36 for diesel, the rest of the continent witnessed a slide in the past few weeks, making petrol and diesel in Malta among the most expensive within the EU.

The EU average price for unleaded petrol dropped from €1.34 to €1.26 a litre and that of diesel fell from €1.27 to €1.19. This followed a sustained drop in the price of crude oil on the international markets over the past year or so.

According to an analysis carried out by this newspaper and based on daily prices issued by www.energy.eu – a reputable energy databank – until yesterday Malta had the fifth highest price of unleaded petrol in the EU and the third highest in terms of diesel.

Although unleaded petrol is still more expensive in Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK, unlike in Malta, the price there was adjusted downwards over the last two weeks by almost 7c a litre.

The drop in prices has reignited a debate on whether the government should abandon or at least change its hedging policy

When it comes to diesel, only the UK and Italy have higher prices than Malta, although here again, there was a drop of 5c and 6c a litre respectively during the past 15 days.

The only other country where the price of unleaded petrol did not change over the past fortnight was Bulgaria. However, it still sells for 27c a litre less than it does in Malta. Moreover, the price of diesel was reduced by 10c a litre.

The drop in prices has reignited a debate on whether the government should abandon or at least change its hedging policy, the buying policy through which Enemalta fixes the price of fuels for a defined period of time by buying in advance.

Over the past months, the system appears to have worked consistently against local consumers. However, Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi defended the policy, highlighting the stability it gives the economy, avoiding shocks when prices spiked unpredictably. He said that, long term, particularly when oil prices were high, Malta had lower pump prices than the EU average.

The Nationalist Party has been highly critical of the government’s stance, arguing that the government was making an exorbitant profit on the sale of fuel and implying that the policy was retained to compensate for Enemalta’s losses due to lower electricity tariffs.

Earlier this month, the PN published a list of prices which showed that Maltese consumers were, on average, paying much more than their EU counterparts each time they went to the petrol station.

Since then, the average price of unleaded petrol and diesel in the EU continued to drop.

In the last Budget, the government announced a revision in prices as from January, down 2c a litre on unleaded petrol and 1c on diesel. However, the cost of petrol and diesel here will still remain among the highest in the EU.

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