Putting gasoline in a car is generally perfectly normal in most countries, but depending on where you live, the impact on your pocket can be very different. Although gasoline and diesel are sold around the world, the conditions that determine their price are very different. And the reasons that increase it, too.
The price of fuel is subject to many different variables. Government subsidies, taxes, the price of a barrel of oil, anti-inflationary policies or whether a country has to import oil or vice versa can affect its production in general. All this can radically change the price of a liter of gasoline, causing one country to pay 200 times more than another. But the purchasing power of the consumer also affects.
Gasoline and diesel prices have not stopped rising since the start of the war in Ukraine. A situation that has directly affected the quantity for which fuel is sold but does not have the same effect in all countries. In fact, there is a large difference in the selling price of gasoline between some countries and other countries.
The Global Petrol Prices website regularly updates gasoline prices around the world, pointing to countries for which official figures are available and flagging countries whose prices may be overestimated. As of April 10, 2023, the average price of gasoline in the world is 1.21 euros per liter of fuel, but the range of the difference is huge. In Spain, for example, the average is 1.61 euros per litre. The general rule is that the richest countries have the highest prices for this fuel, while the poorest countries serve the cheapest gasoline.
“There are oil-exporting countries, such as Qatar and Kuwait, which keep the price of fuel very low by subsidizing it, but there are also advanced economies, such as the United States and Australia, where fuel is more expensive but incomes are higher.” they tell. Neven Valeev, director of the Global Petrol Prices and Global Economy Project.
The difference between the most expensive and the cheapest country is remarkable
As a general rule, the richest countries have higher prices for this type of fuel. And the opposite happens with poorer countries, where petrol is usually cheaper. According to global petrol prices, these are the 10 countries where petrol per liter is sold at the highest price in the world:
- Hong Kong: 2,713 Euros.
- Syria: 2,149 Euro.
- Iceland: 2,147 Euros.
- Monaco: 2,076 Euros.
- Norway: 2,046 Euros.
- Denmark: 2,022 Euros.
- Central African Republic: 1,983 Euros.
- Finland: 1,965 Euro
- Greece: 1,940 Euros.
- France: 1,925 Euros.
In the opposite direction, we find Hong Kong, as a liter of gasoline costs 2.84 Euros in the region, meaning that filling a 55-litre tank involves an outlay of over 150 Euros. In a typical SUV in the C segment, which can have an average consumption of around 7.5 L/100 km, traveling a hundred kilometers will cost around 20 Euros. In other words, the distance that separates, for example, Valencia to Madrid, gasoline will cost 75 euros.
10 countries with the cheapest petrol
According to the Global Petro Prices website, a liter of gasoline in Venezuela costs only 0.015 euros. Spain is closer to Hong Kong than Venezuela, but without the exorbitant prices of the Asian country. They remain at 1.73 euros per liter of gasoline and 1.82 euros per liter of diesel, despite the fact that the average fuel price in Spain decreased by almost 3% last week. This means that filling a 55 liter tank of a petrol car will cost less than 85 euros on average, and in the case of diesel it will go up to 89 euros.
- Venezuela – 0.015 Euro/Litre
- Libya – 0.030 Euro/Litre
- Iran – 0.051 Euro/Litre
- Angola – 0.303 Euro/Litre
- Algeria – 0.318 Euro/Litre
- Kuwait – 0.327 Euro/Litre
- Turkmenistan – 0.414 Euro/Litre
- Egypt – 0.418 Euro/Litre
- Nigeria – 0.419 Euro/Litre
- Kazakhstan – 0.430 Euro/Litre
