Doris Leblond
OGJ Correspondent
PARIS, Feb. 1 -- France's Finance and Economy Minister Christine Lagarde has rebuked oil companies and distributors for contributing to gasoline price volatility. She said if they had kept promises made at a Nov. 10 roundtable she chaired, they would have smoothed out oil price peaks and passed on gasoline price drops as quickly as possible in service stations.
She noted in a press release that at the end of January the price of motor fuel had returned to the preroundtable level following heights reached in early January.
But she noted three factors that explained "the variations" in the price of motor fuels over the last few weeks in France:
-- The impact of the French biofuels plan, which since Jan.1 has jumped to a 5.75% incorporation into motor fuels. That goal was set by the European Union for 2010, but France anticipated it earlier, leading to logistic adaptations and costlier supply.
-- The turnaround of a number of refineries, the reduction in product sulfur content, and the railway strikes that resulted in higher costs in late November.
-- The increase in the internal oil products tax, which the government has transferred to the regions.
Jean-Louis Schilansky, delegate general of the oil companies' trade group UFIP, told OGJ that the price of gasoline and diesel fuel increased by some €0.02/l. compared with what it should have been.
Schilansky said, "What we really appreciate is the rational analysis of the situation by the government. The price of motor fuels is now being discussed at an economic level and no longer in a political and polemical way."
