Oil prices continued to soar on Monday, as did the price of gold, which briefly exceeded $2,000 an ounce. The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, which serves as a benchmark in Europe, came close to 140 dollars on Sunday evening, close to its absolute record of 147.50 dollars reached in July 2008.
The immediate and visible consequence is the price at the pump, which should increase this week by 8 to 10 euro cents. “The hardest part is yet to come”, warns Michel-Édouard Leclerc this Monday morning. “The mythical bar of two euros is in everyone’s mind. You can do this in Paris and in many big cities. In Leclerc stations, the price of diesel is on average 1.85 euros but 1.95 in large cities. For the E10, at 1.85 euros per litre…
Faced with these circumstances, Michel-Édouard Leclerc invites consumers to consult all existing sites that compare fuel prices. “A distributor who is not expensive will sell more and will have to renew his stocks more quickly at a more expensive price. And sometimes it’s going to be more expensive for a few hours than the usually higher priced one. »
“Our problem is to switch from one supply to another”
In the face of the worsening war in Ukraine, direct sanctions against Moscow’s hydrocarbon exports are no longer a taboo concept. US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the United States and the European Union were “very actively” discussing the possibility of banning imports of Russian oil.
Europeans are more cautious, however, as some regional states such as Germany are heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas. And even in France, oil supplies remain substantial. “A third of our fuel on the Atlantic coast and all the diesel comes via Russian traders, explains Michel-Édouard Leclerc on France Info while the brand is the second largest distributor in France with more than 10 billion liters sold per year. . “Our problem is switching from one supply to another. It’s to get barges in the United States. But it takes a month to come from the United States. There is tension around Ukraine but I don’t know if the European states will stop buying all this energy from Russia”.