What a litre cost in Ireland, 2016The widest gap between petrol and diesel.

In 2016 the Commission recorded 50 weekly prices for Ireland; their average was €1.283 for petrol and €1.148 for diesel. The year's closing petrol price was 6.0 cent higher than the opening one. The change from 2015 amounts to −8.6 cent for petrol and −11.2 cent for diesel, comparing annual averages.

For diesel the high was €1.239 on 12 Dec and the low €1.039 on 15 Feb; petrol ran from €1.199 to €1.349. Diesel cost 13.5 cent a litre cheaper than petrol on average over the year. Over the year the duties and VAT made up 66.1% of what a motorist paid for petrol, around 84.8 cent a litre. Green diesel ran from €0.476 to €0.662 during 2016, with an average of €0.575.

On monthly averages, March offered the cheapest petrol (€1.206) and June the dearest (€1.329).

From one Monday to the next, petrol gained in 16 cases and lost in 14; 20 times the average repeated itself.

The EU average for petrol that year was €1.291, which left Ireland 0.8 cent lower on the European mean.

The duty line in 2016 is flat: petrol €587.71 and diesel €479.02 per 1,000 litres, unchanged across the twelve months.

The CSO recorded petrol at €1.257 in January and €1.325 in December, on its monthly national average.

What a litre cost in 2015 and fuel prices in 2017 sit either side of this year in the archive.

For the whole series in one table, the price history charts.