Diesel fuel price up 50 cents a gallon in Italy

Diesel fuel price up 50 cents a gallon in Italy
By Lisa M. Novak, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, November 30, 2007

The price of diesel fuel in Italy will climb nearly 50 cents a gallon when the new coupon price comes out on Saturday.

At the beginning of December, a 100-liter booklet of diesel will jump to $105 from $92, an increase of 13 cents a liter, or 49.2 cents a gallon.

A 100-liter booklet for unleaded gasoline will now cost $99, a $7 jump from the November price. That works out to 26.5 cents a gallon.

According to Bart Di Muccio, manager of the Tax-Free Office, which oversees the program, the price increase was unavoidable.

“We’ve tried to keep the price down, but due to the industrial cost of oil and the euro conversion rate, we had no choice. There’s no profit whatsoever, this is a break-even price,” Di Muccio said.

Predictably, Americans stationed in Italy aren’t pleased with the increase.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50621