An undesirable fuel price hike has left Croatia's drivers somewhat disgruntled.
Croatia's drivers were met a new unpleasant surprise at fuel stations across the country recently - fuel prices have drastically increased.
As Josip Bohutinski/VL/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 9th of October, 2018, Eurosuper 95, according to the portal cijenegoriva.info, now comes at a price of 10.60 kuna, which is 20 lipa more than it was last week. Eurodiesel has also increased its price by 28 lipa so its current price at fuel stations across Croatia is now 10.41 kuna per litre.
Tin Bašić from the portal cijenegoriva.info says that its current price, Eurosuper 95 is at its highest since October 2014, while Eurodiesel's prices are probably the highest in Croatia's history. Jasminko Umičević says that the main reason for the new price hikes is Iran's oil price, more specifically American sanctions towards that country. He explains that Iran, which has no modern oil refineries, before the re-introduction of sanctions, exported crude oil to other Gulf countries which do have modern refineries.
According to Umičević, over the last two to three months, big changes have been taking place because other models are being used to replace Iranian oil in the Gulf States with Russia. As far as Croatia is concerned, Umičević confirmed that the price of Eurodiesel, at 10.41 kuna, is indeed the highest in this country's history.
He says that demand for this type of fuel is big for Croatia, as nearly 70% of drivers use diesel engines. Also, as Umičević explains, the problem of the high excise duty on fuel and VAT that is paid on these excises also comes into the equation. The Croatian Chamber of Commerce says that Croatia, in terms of fuel pricing, lies somewhere in the upper half of European countries, while in regard to the EU, it's somewhere in the middle. They state that all EU countries are bound by mandatory minimum excise duties prescribed by the EU itself.
Click here for the original article by Josip Bohutinski/VL/Poslovni Dnevnik
