How does this maximum price principle work? First, oil companies sell their fuels to distributors at market cost. As for the distributors, they are subject to a maximum selling price imposed by the federal authorities and calculated on the basis of quotations for petroleum products on international markets. The price of fuel is capped for a period of seven days and therefore does not align with a market surge.
Gas station attendants cannot therefore sell their gasoline at a higher price than that set by the authorities. As a result, distributors buy fuel from oil companies at a price higher than the maximum selling price. Some pump attendants thus risk selling their products at a loss.
“We still have some stock to hold out with today’s high price. But in a few days, we will have to reload the tanks. And at that point, we will have to buy a product that is more expensive than the selling price. If we do not have an increase in this maximum price in the next few days, it will no longer be possible to sell the product because we will sell at a loss. So we can no longer cover our operating costs.“, explains John Schurmann pump attendant in Eghezée.
Faced with this situation, he and his colleagues fear that they will have to close their service stations.
