Dear European PO.com viewers:

Please start using this thread to record fuel shortage reports in your area, and also, reports of unusually annoying price increases in your area.

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Reason: We have figured out that the US will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 million barrels of gasoline per week, to arrive starting in the mid-May time frame in order to avoid some potential system issues over here in the US.

So any info on this topic that would give us some idea if this gas is on the way would be wonderful. Also, if anybody can provide us with a link to a commodity exchange where we can track European spot prices it would be helpful.

Logically, if you are going to sell us some of your fuel, it should be showing up in your pricing system right about now. If we find out this is not happening, I am going to fix up my bicycle because I will probably be needing it in about six weeks.

If you want, feel free to rant about how our gas prices are too cheap, how we are all fatasses who need to walk more, etc. etc.

We will endure the humiliation to whatever extent that we can, as long as we can get the info we need.

Thanks, Takk, Danke, Gracias, Merci, Prego, Cheers
pup55

Hi Pup

Unleaded gasoline has been creeping up over the last few weeks, the lowest I ever saw was 86.9 pence per litre ($1.73.8 dollars per litre).

It now stands at circa 90.9 pence per litre ($1.818) from the same garage.

Diesel has gone from about 88.9 pence ($1.778) to 93.9 pence ($1.878)

Nothing too dramatic yet , but the press are already talking about £1 per litre ($2) or £4.54 per gallon (roughly $9 although our gallon is a little bigger than yours )

Thank smeg the car gets 41 mpg!! It just cost me $86 to fill the Ford mondeo TDCi!

You should probably fix your bike any which way.

I have some charts:
http://www.polttoaine.net/index.php?cmd=tilastot

As you can see, the price has been creeping upwards. In february, gas (95E) was below 1.2 EUR/l, but now it's close to 1.3 EUR/l. The brent oil chart is in liters, so it's confusing. The polttoaine.net web site tracks fuel prices in Finland. When Katrina stuck the price for 95E was 1.5 EUR/l for a few days.

Hi pup55

France calling.

Right now pump unleaded is between about EUR 1.25 and EUR 1.34 - I wouldn't call that unusual. Maybe up 5 cents or so over the last few months, which I guess would be a fair reflection of the gradual run-up in crude prices?

Last summer when we had the spike I DID notice the spread between big & small retailers widened a lot - up to about 25 cents (off the top of my head). Don't know quite what that was about though - probably a combination of reasons.

Anyhow, I've bookmarked this thread and if I see any sudden run-ups I'll post 'em right-away. But for now I'd say that we aren't about to drain our tanks...

JPL

Prices for Belgium : Liege region

to this day 15-04-07 :

DIESEL between 0.938 E/Liter --> 0.975 E/Liter
EUROSUPER 95 between 1.230E/Liter --> 1.305 E/Liter
SUPERPLUS 98 between 1.283 E/Liter --> 1.385 E/Liter

You can track weekly UK average pump prices here, it tracks 75% of the petrol stations in the UK.

At the time of writing (Avg. / Min. / Max.):

Unleaded: 92.4p / 88.9p / 100.0p
Diesel: 94.8p / 90.9p / 104.9p
LRP: 96.3p / 91.9p / 99.9p
Super: 98.7p / 91.9p / 106.9p
LPG: 45.6p / 39.9p / 49.9p

Since last week's update, unleaded has risen 0.8p per litre, or 6c per US gallon at £1.00 = $1.97. My closest petrol station raised its price for unleaded and diesel by 2p a few days ago, but the rise only took it to the national average.

So far this year, there has been relatively little variation, average price for unleaded has held at around 90p per litre ($6.71 per gallon), minimums and maximums of 87p and 100p, with diesel typically priced 2p higher. If you strip away the tax, this corresponds to 29.5p per litre, or $2.20 per gallon.

The French refinery blockade did nothing, as the UK has 9 refineries of its own which meet its needs.

UK energy stats are here, sadly the data is quarterly, from what I gathered we have adequate refining capacity to keep domestic stocks high, but don't count on much in the way of exports as the long-term trend is steady erosion of exports.

It will be interesting to see how high our prices go this summer. An average of 95p per litre in the near future is a certainty due to seasonal demand, whether it breaches the 100p barrier is the subject of debate.

Summary: Nothing unusual to date.

Wow. You guys in France and Belgium need to come down south to fill up. Here in Spain we're still getting EUROSUPER 95 at EUR 0.95 a litre.

I also heard on the radio the other day that our natural gas (not petrol) prices are actually going DOWN, only a few cents for home owners but a decent jump for industry. This probably has something to do with Zapatero's recent trip to Algeria where we get around 90% of the stuff.

(Can I call you all fatasses now?)

Dirt cheap over here. Something like $4.50 per gallon. When considering the amount of firewood I cut with the chainsaw, even $45 per gallon would be a bargain. Something like $100 for a bicycle tyre would also be absolutely dirt cheap - they last for several years and bring me thousands of miles further than walking would do.

Feel free.

Anyway the general consensus is: no funny stuff in pricing yet.

As you continue to enjoy teasing us, I hope you will also monitor this situation and let us know if there are any changes.

Thanks again

pup55

the difference between the US Nimex and the UK Brent is now $5
whereas usually it's 30 to 40 cents and no more, so something has happened in the last week to push Brent $5 higher, now just under $69. Whether it's Iran (as the EU would suffer most initially) or whether it's our production is dropping ever faster or as you point out it could well be that we are about to start selling you ours and therefore the markets are buying now
check up to the minute barrel prices at
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commod ... rices.html

Perhaps this early march 2007 report has finally sunk in? March 2007 UK oil stats

Pup55 are you predicting gasoline shortages? That is the one issue that I am very interested in.

This may not be about price but something equally annoying if not more so. I reside in London UK so if anyone else has noticed this please feel free to substantiate it if you can recall. My gripe is that lately forecourts are increasingly placing "out of order" signs on the ordinary unleaded, with only the higher priced unleaded available. This caught me out a few weeks ago when I ran out of petrol looking for garage with ordinary unleaded. More fool me. 3 petrol stations in my area had apparantly completely sold out of ordinary unleaded. With the stupid notion that the next garage will have some I pressed on. I wasn't going out of my way by any means but that many stations without unleaded?

.94-97 Eurocents a liter around the Aegean vicinity for unleadead.
Thats it US suck it up.The sooner the better.