Fuels: the government will check that distributors are “playing the game” of falling prices, warns Maud Bregeon

“What matters for us is that, everywhere in France, no matter where you live, you can benefit from a drop in prices at the pump,” explained government spokesperson Maud Bregeon on BFMTV/RMC this Monday, October 12, while fuel distributors are expected in Matignon during the day to accelerate the release of diesel stocks.

Which should, according to announcements from Sébastien Lecornu and Serge Papin last week, allow a drop in prices “from the beginning of November”. It will then be “the role of the government to check that the entire chain plays the game, and that there is no increase in margins here or there”, estimated the Minister of Energy, ensuring “to monitor, week after week, the margins of distributors”.

On this subject, the minister affirmed that the State would be “extremely vigilant” as to the fact that fuel distributors “really pass on these reductions” but also “to what is happening with the transporters and throughout the chain”. On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced the release of ten million barrels of diesel over three months in order to lower diesel pump prices. At the same time, the Minister of Purchasing Power Serge Papin specified that the release of diesel stocks “will take place on November 1”, with an effect on lowering prices which “could be seen from the beginning of November”.

An “operation that will last over time” according to Maud Bregeon, “with extremely identified operations to control margins and monitor the entire value chain”. “We will be intractable because no one would understand that, here or there, some people can capture margins even though the price of diesel remains extremely high,” she continued.

As for the question of whether Total - which has implemented a price freeze - would benefit from this volume contribution, the government spokesperson responded in the affirmative: "Total will benefit, like all distributors, from this volume contribution, with prices 3 to 4 times lower than those of the market (...) This must, as for other distributors, be reflected in their prices and we will check it, station by station, week by week", she further explains.

“We will be intractable in the face of changes in margins,” asserts the Minister of Energy, all the same believing that “until now”, fuel distributors had generally “played the game”. And to conclude: “I am hopeful and I want to believe that, in a very difficult moment, they will continue to do so. Their margins are low, they obviously must not increase due to the crisis.