Fuel prices in Romania are now 16% below the European average, the president of the Competition Council, Bogdan Chirițoiu, told Agerpres on Thursday, assuring that the authority collects daily data on pump prices from large gas station chains and sends them to the Government.

“The fuel market – obviously we keep an eye on what’s happening there. We collect data every day, we have a platform called the Price Monitor through which we receive prices from all gas stations in the large chains and then we provide this data to the Government. But we compare ourselves, of course, with what’s happening in other countries in Europe and what we see is that, although prices have increased – they are now over 9 lei for gasoline and almost 10 lei for diesel, however, compared to other states in the Union, we are substantially cheaper. If under normal conditions for diesel we were close to the European average and for gasoline we were 3 to 5% below the European average, now we are 16% below the European average, so fuel is substantially cheaper here than in most countries in the European Union”, said Chirițoiu.

He explained this by the presence on the Romanian market of the main companies in the field.

“And why is that? Because, in fact, having the main companies present on our market – Petrom, Kazmunaygas, which is Rompetrol, SOCAR – they have their own sources of oil and then they are not so dependent on what is happening on international markets and this allows them to sell somewhat cheaper than the fuel is sold in other countries in the Union”, claimed the head of the competition authority.