The diesel discounts expire on Monday – what might happen now?
A week of falling petrol prices at service stations is drawing to a close, after the major petrol brands introduced discounts
Next Monday will be the last day of the excise duty cut on diesel, which has stood at 6.1 cents per litre for the past ten days or so. Looking ahead, the Government has already signalled its intention to introduce variable excise duties. In the meantime, however, prices at the pump have begun to fall, and the circumstances on which that decision was based may no longer be the same.
Variable excise duties
The approach outlined is that of variable excise duties: a mechanism that is now well established. Meloni announced this following the Council of Ministers meeting on 16 September: the State will once again ‘pass on the additional revenue’ to reduce ‘the cost at the pump as much as possible’. This concept was also reiterated, amongst other things, in the letter sent a few days ago to the European Commission. Last Tuesday, at the Sole 24 Ore Italian Energy Summit in Milan, Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin confirmed this approach, using a cautious formulation: ‘At the moment, I can say yes’.
No intervention
It is easy to work out the figures for the scenario without a discount. Without any intervention, diesel would rise from today’s average of 2.247 euros per litre at the pump to around 2.308 euros. It would, however, remain below the levels of just five days ago, when on Monday 28 September the average stood at 2.369 euros.
The airlines’ move
In the meantime, the oil companies took action. That Monday, Eni set a price cap across its network: 1.99 euros per litre for petrol and 2.19 for diesel, for a period of thirty days, extendable. IP followed suit on the same day, with Q8 and Tamoil doing so in the days that followed, gradually extending the price cuts to their own stations. Today, between the 3,847 Eni stations and the approximately 3,000 IP stations that have already adjusted their prices, the reduced prices cover almost a third of the network. The result is reflected in the averages: in less than a week, diesel has fallen by 12.2 cents, double the discount due to expire. Petrol, which had been excluded from the cuts for months, has fallen from 2.152 to 2.052 euros.
