Petrol stations raise the price of petrol significantly

Petrol stations raise the price of petrol significantly. Refueling has become significantly more expensive within a year. Compared to April 2020, drivers had to pay around a quarter (plus 24.8 percent) more for premium petrol last month, according to the Federal Statistical Office. In the case of diesel, the increase over the same month last year was 19.5 percent; the prices for LPG climbed by 14.2 percent. The increase has several causes: According to the Federal Office, these range from the effects of the Corona crisis, which caused the oil price to collapse in spring 2020, to the CO2 levy, which has been driving up prices since January 2021 in addition to the end of the temporary VAT cut Fuels. With an increase of 23.3 percent, fuels became more expensive than average - overall consumer prices rose by 2.0 percent from April 2020 to April 2021. "Since January 2021, in addition to the end of the temporary VAT cut, the introduction of the CO2 tax has also been driving up the price of fuels," the statisticians explained. Since then, climate-damaging fossil fuels have been charged with 25 euros per ton of CO2. The development of crude oil prices on the world markets also made itself felt at the pumps: The import prices for crude oil more than doubled in March 2021 compared to the same month last year and are back at pre-crisis levels. A year earlier, global demand collapsed due to the Corona recession, which led to a drop in prices. This leads to a so-called base effect. "This means that the amount of the annual rate of change of a certain month depends not only on the current price development, but also on the price development of the previous year," it said. At the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, crude oil prices had fallen sharply due to low demand on the world market. The comparison with these low prices "currently and in the next few months leads to very high annual inflation rates for crude oil". Meanwhile, the import of crude oil to Germany has been declining for a long time. According to the Federal Office, this trend will continue this year: from January to March 2021, 18.2 million tons of crude oil were imported, 18.9 percent less than in the same period of the previous year. In 2020 as a whole, there were 84.7 million tons of crude oil with a value of 24.1 billion euros, in the peak year 2005 it was 114.5 million tons. By far the most important crude oil supplier for Germany is Russia. With around 26.3 million tons, Germany obtained almost a third (31.0 percent) of its oil from there in 2020, according to the Federal Office. 12.1 percent came from the USA and 9.1 percent from Great Britain. It is followed by Kazakhstan, Norway, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iraq.