Motorists will be hit by new fuel price hikes from midnight

Motorists will be hit with a price hike of 4 cents to 5 cents per liter for diesel and petrol from the New Year onwards as biofuel blending requirements and associated legislative delays change.

Effective January 1, 2023, fuel distributors must increase their Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) rate to 16.98 percent from the current 13 percent.

This aims to support the sector in achieving a 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.

While the Department for Transport says fuel distributors have “a variety of methods” to make this change in line with a “marginal” price increase of 1c per litre, the issuance of certificates linked to these measures is believed to be “delayed and waiting for supporting legislation”. .

As a result, companies and fuel suppliers across the country have received letters from suppliers in recent days informing them of an increase of 4 to 5 cents per liter on petrol and diesel from tomorrow, also raising concerns that green diesel could be used for agricultural purposes and oil used for heating homes will also be affected.

A well-placed industry source told the Farming Independent: “We operate dozens of trucks and hundreds of machines, our diesel bill went from €390,000 in February to €750,000 in March and €800,000 in October.

“These new increases add up to an additional €27,000 per month for us. I watch oil prices every day and the minute they go up 1 percent we get a 4/5 cpl price hike from the oil suppliers – price measurement needs to take place.

“Last week agricultural diesel was 93.58 cpl and white highway diesel was 129.5 cpl. These new increases mean 98c per liter for green diesel and 135c per liter for road diesel from tomorrow.

“We’ve been in business for decades, we employ hundreds of people, if we get another year of this we’ll downsize or get out of the game because all our profits just go to the diesel companies – our costs have gone up by €4million extra this year, all of which was spent on fuel and AdBlue, which has tripled in price alongside engine oil, hydraulic oil and transmission oil.”

Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice said: “The delay or lack of legislation gives fuel importers or retailers a free hand.

“Instead of an increase that was rumored to be around 1 cent per litre, motorists will now be charged 5 to 6 cents if you include VAT.

“When it is added to green diesel, the farmer has to pay more for the work done and that is problematic.

“This is absolutely insane at a time when people are fighting. This has been kept under the rug and many motorists will not understand what is happening until they are at the pump.

“The simple solution is, if they don’t have the legislation they need, they should wait until the laws are debated in the Dáil and the facts of what’s going on are laid out.”

In a statement, a spokesman for the Ministry of Transport said: “In order to achieve a 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030, the goal of the climate protection plan is to gradually increase the blending rate of biofuels in road transport to at least B20 (biodiesel) in diesel to achieve and E10 (ethanol) in petrol by 2030.

“The RTFO rate, as recommended by the National Oil Reserves Agency (NORA), is set at a level high enough to ensure that bioethanol and biodiesel blending is increased to ultimately meet the 2030 target .

“Program operators (fuel suppliers) have a variety of methods to meet the obligation and incentivize competitive market action to deliver the change, e.g. B. bioethanol in gasoline and biodiesel (FAME) or hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) in diesel.

“If the cost of biofuels exceeds the cost of their fossil counterparts, any increase in the proportion of biofuels used will ultimately result in higher prices for consumers.

“A small pump price increase from the RFTO 2023 tariff change could be slightly above 1 cpl for petrol and slightly below 1 cpl for diesel.

“The 1cpl estimate for the RTFO increase is based on an E10 effective January 1st and an opportunity for NORA to issue additional RTFO certificates for HVO – these actions have been delayed and await supporting legislation.

“The potential industry price increase of 4-5 cpl is based on meeting the RTFO rate in 2023 with no additional measures.

“The industry price estimate also reflects the introduction of the advanced 0.3 percent mandatory biofuel rate, which aligns with the European Renewable Energy Directive and requires suppliers to source some biofuels from alternative feedstocks.”