Portuguese Diesel Sets an All-Time Record at the Pump This Week After a Fifteen-Cent Jump, With Petrol 95 Near 2.12 Euros a Litre

The average price of diesel in Portugal has never been higher than 2.131 euros a litre. That figure was set in the week of 6 April this year, and it displaced a record that had stood since October 2022. On Monday it is expected to fall.

The National Association of Fuel Retailers, ANAREC, projects a rise of about 15 cents a litre on diesel and about 10 cents on petrol from Monday 7 September. That would take diesel to roughly 2.17 euros a litre and petrol 95 to roughly 2.12 euros. Mafalda Trigo, ANAREC's vice-president, told Antena 1 that the numbers were still a projection built on international markets and that the final figure would be confirmed during the afternoon. Galp and the Automóvel Clube de Portugal have published forecasts of their own, both above 10 cents on each grade.

Prices at the pump are free in Portugal, so no station is obliged to move by the projected amount. The averages the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology publishes are what set the record, and they were still 2.019 euros for diesel and 2.022 euros for petrol 95 in the middle of last week.

Nine weeks in eleven years

The comparable DGEG series begins in April 2015. In the 591 weeks since, the national average price of diesel has closed above two euros a litre in nine of them. The April peak of 2.131 euros beat the 2.124 euros recorded at the height of the energy crisis that followed the invasion of Ukraine, and the increase now forecast would clear it by about four cents.

The cause is upstream. Crude has added roughly 10 percent in a week, and refining margins on finished product have widened on top of that. The economist Filipe Grilo, speaking to Antena 1, attributed the move to the worsening of the war in the Middle East and to those refining margins, and said he expects another increase the week after this one. In the United States, diesel reached 5.85 dollars a gallon on Friday, its highest ever, passing the 2022 peak.

Three cents back, and a proposal on coloured diesel

The government moved before the rise landed. On Friday it widened the ISP fuel-tax discount by a further three cents, the latest in a run of adjustments that has continued through the summer; it had reclaimed part of the same discount at the end of August on the expectation that prices would fall on their own.

Luís Montenegro, speaking in Nelas at the Dão wine fair, ruled out a VAT cut. He argued that the state is "not collecting a cent more" from higher pump prices, because the ISP discount returns exactly the amount by which VAT receipts rise with the price, and put the total value of this year's ISP discount at about 700 million euros. He also said the government is finishing a proposal to revive the extraordinary support for coloured diesel, used by farmers, that expired in June, and pointed to an increased Botija Solidária payment on bottled gas. "We are alongside families and firms to try to reduce the impact, which is large," he said.

José Luís Carneiro, the Socialist leader, has accused the government of gaining from the increases and wants the VAT rate on fuel reduced. The PCP is asking for VAT on energy at 6 percent and a gas bottle fixed at 20 euros. Separately, the Environment Minister has asked ERSE to draft itself the power to fine the fuel sector and to reconcile the competing official price references.

What this means for expats

• A full tank costs about nine euros more: at 15 cents a litre, a 60-litre diesel fill rises by 9 euros; a petrol fill of the same size rises by about 6 euros.
• The record is an average, not a price: individual stations sit well above and below the DGEG figure, and low-cost outlets typically lag the weekly move by a day or two.
• Check the ISP line on your receipt: the discount is itemised on the fuel invoice alongside the tax the state collects, which is the clearest way to see what the rebate is actually worth to you.
• Expect it in the inflation print: fuel did almost all the work in August's 3.3 percent reading, and September's will be measured against a considerably higher base.
• Farmers should watch the coloured-diesel file: the extraordinary support that ended in June is being redrafted, and the government has not yet said at what level it would return.