andMr. Molony asked the Minister for Industry and Energy the annual cost to industry of the differential in the pre-tax price of oil in Ireland, as compared with the average in all EEC countries.
Written Answers . - Petrol/Oil Costs .
720.
: The Deputies will appreciate that I do not have functions in relation to prices and margins for oil products sold on the market and, therefore, in reply to the question I have to rely on data generally available. On the basis of monthly information received by the EEC from the member states (excluding Greece) the simple average of the tax exclusive EEC prices of gas oil and fuel oil on 15 December 1982, which is the latest date of available information, was US $317.42 per 1,000 litres and US $191.21 per tonne respectively. The Irish prices at the same time were gas oil US $357.68 per 1,000 litres and fuel oil US $222.82 per tonne.
It is estimated that industrial consumption in Ireland of gas oil in 1982 was 0.232m. tonnes and fuel oil 1.492m tonnes. The extra cost to Irish industry when compared with the simple average of EEC prices was therefore $11.1m. gas oil and $47.2m. fuel oil.
If the EEC average is weighted by total oil consumption in each country the estimate of the extra cost to Irish industry is US $11.0m gas oil and US $63.1m fuel oil.
Care must be taken with the data on the following grounds: (a) extrapolations from one month to an annual basis can be misleading particularly in regard to 1982 when there were many fluctuations in prices between products and between countries; (b) price data for gas oil includes prices charged for household gas oil usage; (c) petrol has been excluded as industrial use of petrol is not separately available; (d) the break down of fuel oil and gas oil and usage in each member state for 1982 is not yet available.
The latest Community monthly pre-tax price data available from the EEC Commission is as follows:
15 December 1982.
|
Gas Oil (per 1000 litres) |
Fuel Oil (per tonne) |
|
|
$ |
$ |
|
|
Ireland |
357.68 |
222.82 |
|
Belgium |
289.55 |
166.69 |
|
Denmark |
336.20 |
209.44 |
|
Germany W. |
314.07 |
177.23 |
|
France |
320.82 |
191.19 |
|
Italy |
316.69 |
186.08 |
|
Luxembourg |
305.99 |
181.85 |
|
Netherlands |
299.91 |
190.54 |
|
UK |
315.85 |
195.01 |
|
Simple Average |
317.42 |
191.21 |
721.
andMr. Molony asked the Minister for Industry and Energy the cost of maintaining Whitegate Refinery (a) annually and (b) expressed in the additional cost per gallon of petrol/oil.
: I am assuming that the question does not relate solely to the operational costs at Whitegate which are competitive for a refinery of its type.
There are different methods of evaluating the cost in national economic terms of retaining the refinery in operation and the results of the calculations can vary considerably dependent on which method is chosen and when the calculation is done.
The method of calculation of the cost which follows is based on a comparison of the refinery product prices with the average of the oil companies' actual import prices of product (which would cover both spot-related and term contract purchases) on the grounds that it is reasonable to assume that this average price would equal the average price of the oil product imports substituted by the refinery's output.
The difference between ex-Whitegate prices and the companies' average import prices during the period 6 September 1982 to end-February 1983 is estimated at approximately $20 million. On an annual basis this cost would be in the region of $43 million but I must point out that annualising the historical cost could prove to be misleading as the import prices of petroleum products fluctuate continuously. Indeed, both the Whitegate and import prices have dropped considerably from 1 April 1983. A factor which could affect the annual outturn is that, since September last, Whitegate has been refining the final contract shipments of what was at that time relatively high-priced Saudi crude oil. The only realistic annual figure would be a calculation after a full year's operation.
Applying this annualised cost of $43 million to the total petrol and oil sales in Ireland in 1982 yields a figure of approximately 3p per gallon.