At long last, there seems to be some little bit of stability in agricultural diesel prices.

As we went to press this week, prices of €1.01/l to €1.05/l (VAT inclusive) were being quoted across the country for Marked Gas Oil (MGO), more commonly known as green diesel. International oil markets have somewhat stabilised, but as all suppliers have mentioned, the markets are always volatile, and the slightest ructions could cause a domino effect.

“Fuel prices are definitely not near as unstable as they were, but they remain volatile. A few years ago, prices might fluctuate by half a cent each week. However, nowadays prices continue to go up and down by a few cents each day,” explained one supplier.

Crude oil

Back in November, crude oil was trading as high as $98/barrel. In December, the price dropped to as low as $76/barrel, and since then it has fluctuated from that to a high of $88/barrel in the third week of January.

Over the course of the past month, it has fluctuated from $79-86/barrel. As we went to press this week (Tuesday evening), Brent crude was trading at around $79/barrel, which is as low as it has been since the beginning of January. To put this into perspective, a barrel of crude oil in June peaked at just under $124, almost 57% more.

Outlook

The outlook seems to be fairly positive on the global side. A lot of the disruption from 2022 has been somewhat sorted. The only current negative to keep an eye on are the strikes at French refineries which are important to European supply, but they don’t seem to be having a major effect on the market.

As it stands, prices may move slightly lower from here, but it’s unlikely to be by any huge amount. The good news is that a repeat of last year’s significant volatility is very unlikely, and the market seems to be more balanced as we head into the rest of this year.