€1.59 on average for a liter of unleaded 95 E10 and even €1.52 per liter for diesel. These are the fuel price levels recorded on December 19, unprecedented in three years!
We owe these low prices to a global context that is very favorable to the fall in the price of a barrel of oil: Brent is currently at $61.65, whereas it had climbed to $120 in 2022 at the start of the war in Ukraine. Global oil production is currently running at full capacity while demand, particularly from China, is less than expected. This is the perfect scenario for obtaining very low prices at the pump, even if they have risen very slightly in recent days due to tensions between the United States and Venezuela, as journalists from Le Figaro explain.
On January 1st, it will go up a little
You only have a few hours left to benefit from these rock-bottom fuel prices. Because from January 1, 2026, they will automatically increase due to an increase in the taxes on energy savings certificates (EEC) which energy companies must pay (these famous certificates which now also make it possible to finance the French ecological bonus for new electric cars).
Concretely, we are talking about a increase in fuel prices of 4 to 6 euro cents from this Thursday, January 1, 2026. Nothing catastrophic, then, but the bill at the pump will increase a little.
The rest will depend on the evolution of the global geopolitical context
It remains to be seen how the global oil market will evolve, while everything could change even more favorably, for example in the event of a resolution of the Ukrainian conflict and an end to the embargoes on Russia, a major fossil fuel producing country. Same comment for the tensions between the United States and Venezuela, this heavyweight in global oil production…
