Real price of fuel rises to highest level in more than 30 years
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The real prices of fuels rose in May to their highest levels in more than 30 years.
The Association of Finnish Gasoline Retailers (SBL) calculates that the average price for a litre of 95-octane petrol was EUR 1.364 in May, while the previous record from last autumn was EUR 1.351 a litre.
At some filling stations in Southern Finland prices were as high as EUR 1.49 a litre.
Diesel fuel is also at a new record. The autumn’s record of EUR 1.044 a litre was exceeded, and the average price for the month went up to EUR 1.051.
The price of light fuel oil in May was EUR 0.693 a litre. The record for last October was EUR 0.694.
According to calculations by Helsingin Sanomat, fuel prices are at their highest level in more than 30 years, if inflation is taken into account.
The financial information organisation Suomen Rahatieto (SRT) calculates that a motorist in 1970 paid the inflation-adjusted equivalent of EUR 0.814 for a litre of petrol in early 1970.
The figure is the average price for 1970. The average price for the first month of this year was EUR 1.285.
The cost of living index-adjusted price for diesel fuel has increased during the same period from EUR 0.500 to EUR 1.022 a litre, and the price of a litre light fuel oil has gone up from EUR 0.187 to EUR 0.650.
Jarmo Nupponen, managing director of the Finnish Oil and Gas Federation, sees the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear energy programme as the main reason for the current surge in prices.
Mika Anttonen, CEO of the fuel retailer North European Oil Trade, believes that investment funds investing in oil derivatives are carefully watching the situations in Iran, Iraq, and Nigeria.
Anttonen sees no danger that oil would run out, but its price is being pushed up by speculation on the part of investors.
"There are no real reasons for a rise in the price of oil in the future, but if investors buy oil futures, the price will go up. Nobody knows if this will happen", Anttonen says.
Matti Peitso, head of retail operations at Neste Oil, points out that the price of oil has traditionally been at record highs between late May and early June, as the summer vacation season in the United States approaches, and gasoline consumption increases.
Peitso says that prices have usually gone down after the end of June.
However, he does not expect significant price declines in the long term.
SBL’s Sirpa Kekäläinen believes that prices could rise slightly in the coming days, but that the trend will be downward in the long term.
"I just heard that oil drilling towers in the Gulf of Mexico have been repaired, so I imagine that prices will be going down", she pointed out.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 5.6.2006 - TODAY |
 Real price of fuel rises to highest level in more than 30 years
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