What's happening with the price of diesel? £1.80 a few weeks ago, now it's £1.90

[cakeorwine]

I thought the price of oil was coming down recently?

Is it to do with currency fluctuations?

I haven't filled up for a few weeks and I was surprised by the price I saw.

Ours was 200.9 a few days ago but has since dipped under £2 again.

This?

The gasoline and diesel markets in Northwest Europe have tightened as France seeks alternative sources of supply due to strikes at five of the country's six refineries. Though negotiations are ongoing at ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, and strike action might stop soon, supply disruptions are expected to continue at least for a few weeks.

In this episode of the Platts Oil Markets Podcast, S&P Global Commodity Insights senior editors Virginie Malicier and Elza Turner discuss with Francesco Di Salvo why these social movements had such an impact on road fuel prices.

www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/podcasts/oil/101422-bonus-episode-france-refinery-strikes-gasoline-diesel-europe-prices-rise-exxonmobil-totalenergies

I thought it was because OPEC had agreed to cut production.

It's not going to help Sunak with inflation.

It's called profiteering !

Any tiny excuse to raise prices will always be used

I'm not sure it's "this".

The link and the quote from it is two weeks old and things have changed.

This from just over a week back...

"workers at TotalEnergies ended their strikes at all but two refineries in France on Thursday (October 20),"

sg.news.yahoo.com/most-totalenergies-strikes-end-france-101710141.html

Not sure what's gone on with the workers that were holding out at the two refineries that held out or whether the effects are still being felt in the UK. I do know locally in our part of France fuel stations are just about back to normal service and forecourt prices of all fuels are pretty much back down to pre-strike levels.

lol

The USA has effectively <25 days of distillate product left. They can try and import more, but a lot of it is down to lack of global capacity. China is producing less for environmental reasons, and the next biggest refiner is a country we’ll not be dealing with any time soon (rhymes with Prussia).

By January, the US may have to stop exporting diesel to Europe, because they officially run out at that point, assuming no major cold snap that causes heating oil to also run out.

Now imagine how long society carries on when there is no diesel. At all.

This. Apparently America passed off Saudi and they cut production in retaliation.

Globalisation at its best.

Europe is going to have major problems without Russian imports. The USA can’t prop the EU up forever, not when voters hit back in the midterms.

I think it's to do with the ratio of petrol to oil. Like if 1 barrel of oil is [made up figures] 50 litres of petrol
and 25 litres of diesel. Plus all the other stuff... petrol is in surplus but diesel not.

OPEC+ doesn’t have the capacity. The KSA were likely drawing down stocks or maxing out Ghawar and other tired giant fields to try and meet demand until recession fears hit the prices (energy markets are whack right now).

They want to try and prop prices up, so cutback, but theories of them being unable to sustain are also prevalent. Three nations have been responsible for pretty much all oil production increases of the last decade.

It may well do down the road...

However my comment was specifically in response to the comment about French refinery strikes possibly causing problems for UK supply.

This too. Europe typically imports a lot of diesel from the US and sends petroleum to them in return because the crack spread gets you only so many litres of petrol and distillate per barrel.

This is why, even if we all had EVs and electric freight, we’d have to figure what to do with all the petroleum and diesel we produce when refining oil to get plastics and other chemicals from it.