fuel price in Egypt

The price of fuel in Egypt, and especially that of diesel, has been featured in many recent news stories, owing to the perilous state of the Egyptian economy. As an April 1 article in Financial Times notes:

Egypt imports up to 70 per cent of its diesel, which it uses to fuel cars, farm equipment and power plants. In addition, it subsidises diesel to the tune of at least $1.5bn a month, draining the country’s already perilously low hard currency reserves. A spate of shortages in recent weeks has raised questions about Egypt’s ability to keep the lights on, feed its people and prop up its moribund economy in the coming months.

But Egypt is not the only country that subsidizes diesel. In fact, at US$ 0.32 per liter, diesel is expensive in Egypt compared to what it costs in some other countries. In Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia, the corresponding figures are $0.013, $0.016 and $0.067 respectively. Those three countries, or course, are major oil exporters, unlike Egypt. Egypt is now a net importer of oil, although it does have abundant natural gas deposits. In no other net oil importer is the price of diesel even close to that found in Egypt. Although Sri Lanka appears on the map in the same color as Egypt, its diesel price is as at 0.66 US$ per liter.

As can be seen on the map, based on data from the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report, diesel is generally expensive in the major industrialized countries and inexpensive in the major oil exporters. Oil-exporting Norway, however, has the world’s second highest price level, exceeded only by that of Turkey. Canada and especially the United States stand out for their relatively low prices. Prices vary greatly in Latin America and especially sub-Saharan Africa, which reflect governmental subsidies more than anything else.

I would like to post a world map of natural-gas prices, but I have not yet been able to find one, or the data necessary to construct my own.