Pump Prices to Tumble About 12 Cents a Litre Next Week, ACP Forecasts
Diesel is forecast to fall about 12 cents a litre next week and petrol 12.5 cents, one of the sharpest drops in memory, taking simple diesel to roughly €1.931 and 95-octane petrol to €1.855, according to ACP estimates as global oil prices cool.
Drivers can look forward to one of the sharpest falls at the pump in recent memory next week, with diesel forecast to drop about 12 cents a litre and petrol around 12.5 cents, according to the weekly estimates published by the Automóvel Club de Portugal (Portuguese Automobile Club, or ACP). If the current trend holds, the average price of simple diesel would slide to roughly €1.931 a litre, while 95-octane petrol would ease to about €1.855 — a rare double-digit cut that unwinds much of the summer's climb in a single week.
The projections are built on the latest reference values from the Direção-Geral de Energia e Geologia (Directorate-General for Energy and Geology, or DGEG) and the expected movements based on Thursday's market close. As ever, the numbers come with caveats: the definitive weekly average is only fixed at the end of the day once international quotations settle, and the price on any given forecourt still varies with the brand, the location and whether a station is running a promotion. But the direction is clear, and for once it points firmly downwards.
The swing has almost nothing to do with events in Portugal and almost everything to do with the world oil market. Prices rose earlier in the season on geopolitical tension in the Middle East and fears around the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which much of the world's seaborne crude passes; they retreated during a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, then climbed again as the conflict resumed. Next week's fall reflects the latest cooling. On Thursday morning, Brent crude, the European benchmark, was trading around $83.25 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate near $77.74, while Dutch TTF natural gas stood at about €56.58 per megawatt-hour.
Fuel remains one of the most politically sensitive prices in the Portuguese economy, and the government has kept a hand on the lever. Lisbon has committed to applying an extraordinary, temporary reduction in the Imposto sobre os Produtos Petrolíferos (tax on petroleum products, or ISP) whenever prices rise by more than 10 cents, a mechanism designed to blunt the worst spikes. Any update to that discount could still shift the final figures at the pump in either direction.
Ministers are also probing whether the falls in wholesale markets are being passed on quickly enough. The Minister for the Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, has asked the Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços Energéticos (Energy Services Regulatory Authority, or ERSE) for a detailed study of how retail fuel prices are formed and how fast operators reflect changes in international crude, diesel and petrol quotations. The regulator, which received the request on 15 July, has 20 working days to report back — and, if the legal conditions are met, has been asked to assess an exceptional cap on maximum margins.
For households, the timing is welcome. Cheaper fuel feeds through the wider cost of living, from transport and deliveries to the price of goods on the shelf, and has been one of the forces pulling Portuguese inflation lower in recent months. The practical advice this week reverses the usual counsel: drivers with a nearly empty tank might do well to wait for Monday, when both diesel and petrol should be markedly cheaper than they are today.
