Gasoline prices set to drop midnight Wednesday, but not by as much as expected
Finance Ministry says 20-30 agorot will be shaved off cost per liter, bringing price to lowest in over a year; cut had been expected to be 30-40 agorot
The Finance Ministry announced Tuesday morning that together with the Tax Authority it had decided to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump by 20-30 agorot (6 to 9 cents), less than the expected cut, but still enough to drop the cost per liter to its lowest in over a year.
The final exact cut price will announced later Tuesday and will go into effect at midnight Wednesday night.
A reduction of 30-40 agorot (NIS 0.30 – 0.40) had been expected.
The cost per liter will go down to around NIS 6.30 ($1.90), the lowest it has been since June 2021.
It will be the second reduction over the past two months, during which the price per liter has come down by nearly NIS 2 ($0.60).
The current price is NIS 6.58 ($1.98) for a liter of self-service gas. Prices peaked in June at NIS 8.08 ($2.43) per liter but have been sliding each month since.
The price drop is the result of the government lowering the excise tax on gasoline, first announced by Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman in April, and the lower price of crude oil, which has been dropping globally since early June.
Oil prices spiked at $122.11 per barrel on June 8 — the highest price since March 8 — and have since dropped to approximately $96 per barrel for WTI Crude as of Tuesday.
But even with lower oil prices, over half of the Israeli price for a liter of gasoline is the result of taxes.
Liberman reduced the tariff by half a shekel per liter in April.
The price drop will come as a relief to many Israelis struggling with the rising costs of living.
While inflation in Israel has been more modest than in other countries in the developed world, it has seen steep jumps in the cost of living, from food to building materials. The country is also struggling to rein in rocketing real estate prices.
