EU fuel prices vs Brent: diesel before taxes stood €0.69 per litre above crude in the week of 2 Nov 2026, with taxes at 37.2% of the pump price

1. How far above crude is EU diesel before taxes right now?

In the week of 2 Nov 2026, the EU weighted average diesel price before taxes was €1.35 per litre while Brent crude, converted at the ECB rate and divided by 158.987 litres per barrel, cost €0.660 per litre in the preceding week; the difference of €0.69, or 69.0 cents/l, is what refining, shipping, storage, distribution and retail took per litre before any tax was added, by our own calculation from the Commission's Weekly Oil Bulletin. For Euro-super 95 the same gap was €0.38. The pump price of diesel with taxes was €2.15: crude accounted for 30.7% of it, the before-tax margin for 32.1% and taxes for 37.2%.

The weekly chart since January 2021 shows diesel with and without taxes, German diesel without taxes and Brent per litre. In normal years the orange line, EU diesel before taxes, runs a fairly constant distance above the green Brent line; the 2015–2025 average of that distance was €0.30, and the 2022 peak €0.63 on 24 Oct 2022. In 2026 the gap jumped from €0.43 in the week of 2 Mar 2026 to €0.52 one week later and went on to the record €0.74 on 31 Aug 2026.

The before-tax view strips out the one part of the price that is not set by the market. If diesel were expensive only because crude is expensive, the gap to Brent would stay near €0.30. It has not: since the week of 23 Feb 2026 the EU diesel pump price has risen +€0.56 per litre, of which Brent accounts for +€0.28, the before-tax margin for +€0.29 and taxes for −€0.01. Roughly half of the increase is not the oil price. The pricing of crude itself in euros is on Brent in euros and francs, and the refiner's share of the margin on diesel crack spread chart.

3. Is the gap between diesel and crude at a record in Europe?

Yes, for the EU as a whole: diesel before taxes minus Brent reached €0.74 per litre on 31 Aug 2026, with €0.73 on 24 Aug 2026 and 7 Sep 2026, the three highest weekly values since the Bulletin series began in 2005, above the 2022 peak of €0.63 on 24 Oct 2022. The 2026 average so far is €0.58, 1.9 times the 2015–2025 mean of €0.30 and above the previous record year 2022 at €0.48; the lowest weekly value in the series was €0.14 on 4 Jan 2010. Petrol set its own record in the same week, €0.54 on 31 Aug 2026, against €0.52 in 2022.

Germany is the exception that proves the pattern. Its before-tax margin peaked at €0.79 on 14 Mar 2022, in the first weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine; the 2026 high of €0.78 on 14 Sep 2026 fell a cent short. By yearly average, 2026 at €0.63 already exceeds 2022 at €0.61, because the 2022 spike lasted weeks and the 2026 level has lasted months. Pump prices with taxes are records too: €2.24 for the EU on 28 Sep 2026, €2.46 in Germany on 21 Sep 2026.

The monthly chart since 2005 puts 2026 in context. For most of the series the EU margin sat between €0.19 and €0.25 a litre, the 2005 and 2008 yearly averages; it stepped up in 2022, never fully returned, and in August 2026 averaged €0.72, its highest month. October 2026 averaged €0.65. Records compare weekly values with every week since 2005, in nominal euros per litre; country records use each country's own history.

Diesel before taxes minus Brent per litre, yearly averages of weekly values, euros per litre (own calculation).

5. What do the EU numbers mean for readers in the UK and Ireland?

The EU data show that in 2026 roughly as much of the diesel price increase has come from the before-tax margin over crude (+€0.29 per litre since 23 Feb 2026) as from crude itself (+€0.28), while taxes have barely moved (−€0.01); the phrase 'it is the oil price' explains about half of what European drivers are paying extra. British pump prices are not in the Bulletin, because the UK left the EU in 2020, but UK importers buy diesel in the same North-West European market as the Netherlands, where the before-tax margin was €0.82 in the week of 2 Nov 2026. Our UK page, petrol and diesel prices forecast, uses the government's own weekly series; the Irish numbers are in the table above.

Two readings of the record margin coexist. Fuel retailers and refiners point to real costs: longer shipping routes and higher insurance since the Hormuz disruption, the premium needed to pull diesel cargoes to Europe, biofuel and emissions costs, and a refining system that lost Russian diesel after the invasion of Ukraine and Gulf diesel in 2026. Consumer groups and some governments read the same numbers as evidence of pricing power: that a before-tax margin more than twice its 2015–2025 average cannot be explained by costs alone, and that prices fall more slowly than crude. The data on this page cannot decide between them; they show the size of the gap, its history and how it differs between countries. The mechanics of why diesel detached from petrol are on why diesel costs more than petrol, the crude-to-pump lag on pass-through effect, and the supply shock itself on Hormuz crisis and fuel prices.

The same calculation for the United States, pump price minus WTI per gallon, is on gas prices vs crude oil. This page makes no forecast; the other series of this site are listed on the data hub.

Download all values as CSV (UTF-8, raw values and calculation per row, stable URL; CC BY 4.0 for our calculation, raw data under the source's terms)

How to cite: Global Oil Shock (Jörg Dässler), “EU Fuel Prices vs Brent: Diesel and Petrol Before and After Tax Against Crude per Litre, Weekly Since 2005”, as of 5 Nov 2026, https://globaloilshock.com/en/data/eu-fuel-prices-vs-brent/