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The oil companies have assured the Minister of Industry, José Manuel Soria, that they have been adjusting their prices for some time and that the margins they obtain from the sale of a litre of petrol or diesel oscillate between 1 and 2 euro cents, so that, unless international prices or taxes fall, they cannot "artificially" cut their prices.
The minister called a meeting with the heads of Repsol, Cepsa and BP to express his concern about high fuel prices and to ask them to "pull their weight" to control the CPI, which in August stood at 2.7 %, mainly due to petrol and diesel.
During the meeting held at Industria, representatives of the main oil companies operating in Spain explained to the minister that the high fuel prices are due to the high international price of oil and fuel, as well as the euro-dollar exchange rate and the rise in VAT in Spain, sources familiar with the talks told Efe.
"We share the government's concern about inflation," said the same source, who insisted that if companies were to "eat into" their margins, they could only adjust "at most" those 1 or 2 cents they obtain from the sale of a litre of fuel, to which he added that the sector's sales have accumulated falls of more than 5 %.
In addition, the businessmen have conveyed to Soria their discrepancies with the way in which price comparisons before taxes are established with the rest of Europe, because, in their opinion, they are currently erroneous and mean that prices in Spain are above the average.
For this reason, they have committed to immediately hold "technical study sessions" in which industry and oil company experts will analyse the current methodology of the prices reported and will establish homogeneous measurement parameters for pre-tax prices in the countries of the European Union.
