the drop in fuel prices in the uk is down to one thing customers, all the supermarkets are driving the price of petrol down for one simple thing they want your custom, it has nothing to do with falling oil prices. by the way if you are british remember the government take 50% of all the oil companies profits, so when shell and pb make £20billion profit each the government then get50% of this, a further 70% approx then goes to the government from every litre of fuel sold at the forecourt. the only exception is aviation fuel where no tax is paid at all.
Perhaps the price In France reflects the price change from January 1st 2015 that Diesel in France will cost 4 centimes more per litre. One of the many increases aimed at getting France out of the mire!
I once worked for an independent fuel oil/card supplier here in the UK dealing with the franchised co's and their fleets. Pump prices are lagged up to 6-8wks from wholesale/bunkering and as the euro lags behind the £, take it that this is the reason. A UK forecourt doesn't have a legal obligation to price the pump real-time and hence more profit. Like the BOE base rate is 0.5, banks and BS's won't give/offer you that and neither are they legally obliged to. France imports crude oil through three major sea ports (Marseille, Le Havre, and Saint-Nazaire. Hope this helps.
No idea. Ask somebody in that business. I am just repeating what was in several newspapers at the time. But I get the impression France does pay more. The UK, it appears, mostly buys from the same companies as those working the North Sea so perhaps there are preferential prices. But that is simply speculation, based on logic, which we know is usually wrong.
The oil the UK produces is actually too good to waste on producing petroleum so all the petrol we see at the pumps is from imported oil. You are not telling me France pays more per barrel to import than does the UK.In both countries the major part is still the tax so to my mind there should not be this great difference in percentage of drop.
Regards
The UK is an oil producing nation. One of the first things announced as soon as the crude oil prices fell a few weeks ago was that the prices would drop, more in the UK than most of Europe because the 'countries own' (actually all in the hands of international companies) was cheaper, the price would sink. France does not produce its own, so it has reduced a bit.