A Decade of Petrol Prices Around the World

Key Findings:

1. The Middle East sees drastic volatility across the decade.
2. Iraq tops the leaderboard for the biggest petrol price decrease (74%) over the decade.
3. Saudi Arabia sees the largest petrol price rise in the world, surging 211%
4. UK sees 1.4% increase over the decade, but a huge 38% increase over the last 5 years.
5. Sudan saw the biggest rise between 2019-2020 with a 141% price increase and again the next year with another rise of 76% in 2021.
6. Venezuela’s Petrol is less than 1 pence per litre.

In 2022 the world continues to struggle with the COVID pandemic and lately with recent world events. These are both having a huge impact across various sectors, but the motoring industry is arguably one of the most affected. COVID caused the chip shortage, a problem that is still impacting the new and used car markets, and the UK finds itself amid another petrol crisis after petrol became scarce due to a shortage, then incredibly expensive. 

At CarMoney we wondered how COVID and the recent world events are affecting petrol prices, not only here in the UK, but around the world. What is the price of petrol compared to 10 years ago? Are the majority of countries seeing petrol costs reduce or rise? And how did COVID impact petrol prices from 2019 to 2020 and then again in 2021? 

To find the answers to these questions, we conducted a study into petrol prices around the world, and the results are fascinating.  

Drastic Volatility In The Middle East

You might expect that the price of petrol has skyrocketed in the middle east over the past decade, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. For the most part, the middle east has indeed seen huge rises in petrol costs since 2013, but some countries defy the trend.

Huge Petrol Price Spike For Saudi Arabia

Image: Saudi Arabian Flag

Saudi Arabia saw the biggest increase in cost, recording a 211% rise over the last decade, moving from $0.20/£0.15 to $0.62/£0.46.

But that’s not all, Qatar, Yemen, Bahrain and Oman also were affected with 140.4%, 101.6%, 96.7% and 59.2% increases respectively, giving a drastic overall picture of the Middle East’s petrol problems.

Iraq Bucks The Trend

Image: Iraqi Flag

However, not all countries in the Middle East saw huge spikes in petrol prices. Iraq defied the trend and saw its prices decrease by 74%, going from $1.98/£1.48 in 2013 to $0.51/0.38 as of March 2022.

UK Petrol Price Trends

Here in the UK, we’ve recently seen a large spike due to what’s going on between Russia and Ukraine.

Back in 2013, fuel prices reached $2.10/£1.56 (around £1.83 back then) per litre, which saw us in the top 15 countries with the highest petrol price. Today, prices have only increased slightly risen since then (1.4%), but if we compare today’s price with where we were 5 years ago, we can see the jump, going from $1.54/£1.17 per litre in 2018 to $2.13/£1.62 as reported by globalpetrolprices. 

Today, the UK is the 17th most expensive country for petrol in the world.

2019 Vs 2020 Vs 2021: How Did COVID Impact Petrol Prices?

Due to COVID and the petrol shortage, the UK saw petrol prices fluctuate around the world. We investigated which countries were affected the most.

Sudan Spike Caused By COVID?

While we can’t know for sure if increases and decreases in petrol prices were solely caused by COVID, it’s interesting to see how countries fared during the pandemic period.

Venezuelan petrol prices are excluded from the data due to being incredibly low (the current petrol price is $0.025/£0.019 per litre. 

Sudan saw a huge spike between 2019 and 2020, with petrol prices increasing 141.2% from $0.17/£0.13 to $0.41/£0.31 – but it didn’t stop there. 

In 2021, prices rose yet again by another 57.6%, bringing a litre of petrol to $0.72. 

Zimbabwe was also hit hard, seeing a 51.9% increase from $0.77/£0.57 to $1.17/£0.87. All other countries that saw increases weren’t hit too badly, all under the 10% mark.

Interestingly, some countries saw large decreases in prices too, such as Iran, whose petrol price dropped from $0.11/£0.082 in 2019 to $0.06/£0.045 in 2020 – a decrease of 45.5% that reduced again in 2021 by another 16.7% to $0.05/£0.37.

The UK’s COVID Costs

As for the UK, in 2019 petrol prices were around $1.61/£1.19. By the end of 2020, prices decreased by 3.7% to $1.55/£1.14. 

However, that’s when the UK’s luck ran out, as, by the end of 2021, prices had risen sharply to $1.96/£1.45, an increase of 26.5%.

The price of petrol has been incredibly volatile over the last 10 years, in particular over the COVID period. Perhaps by the end of 2022 when, hopefully, things return to normal – so will the price of petrol.

Cheapest & Most Expensive Petrol In The World

Now that we’ve discovered just how much petrol prices have fluctuated over the last 10 years, let us take a look at the current prices around the world today.

Cheapest

So where in the world can you find the cheapest petrol per litre in 2022? Here are the current rates:

Price per Litre ($)

Most Expensive

And where will you find the most expensive petrol rates in the world?

Price per Litre ($)