Good news for motorists. The oil group TotalEnergies, which manages a third of the service stations in France, announced this Tuesday that it will extend next year the cap to 1.99 euros per liter on the price of gasoline and diesel in its 3,400 stations . According to TotalEnergies, the capping is activated today in 2,600 of its stations, on SP-95, SP-98 and diesel.
Announced in February 2023, “ the cap at 1.99 euros/liter will be extended beyond the end of 2023, as long as prices remain high,” the group indicated in a press release, while the government which brought together fuel distributors on Tuesday morning requested a “solidarity effort”.
Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said at the same time on RMC that she was in contact with “Systeme U, Carrefour and other players in m distribution” and she “believes I know that there will indeed be other announcements” . Intermarché announced that it would sell its fuels at cost price on the last weekend of the month.
“I thank Total and Intermarché for taking their responsibilities, and I expect other fuel suppliers and distributors” to do the same, she added.
At the beginning of September, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire officially asked the CEO of Total, Patrick Pouyanné, to extend its price cap at the pump “beyond December 31”. “The only major French oil company we have left is Total. It must be an et, not just for the French Nation in general, but for all motorists,” explained the minister.
🗣 Fuel prices ➡️ “I would like Total to extend this cap to €1.99 beyond December 31, 2023,” declares Bruno Le Maire.
A rebate from the State would be “a triple aberration”. “It is an ecological, budgetary and diplomatic aberration.” pic.twitter.com/lzfMeAPXgX
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) September 7, 2023
Because fuel prices in France came back this summer : last week on average, SP95-E10 sold at 1.9359 euros per liter (+0.9 cents compared to the previous week), diesel at 1.88 euros (+2.3 cents) and SP-98 at 2 euros (stable). Prices which had not been so high since April for gasoline and February for diesel, according to statistics from the Ministry of Energy Transition.