Diesel and petrol prices are surging at the pump in France, and attention has increasingly turned to oil refiners, who critics say have sharply widened their margins during the crisis. Dominique Schelcher, head of the retail cooperative Coopérative U, said refining margins had "strongly increased, three times, four times over," and suggested this link in the chain could "perhaps today make an effort."
The consumer association CLCV also singled out French refiners, tracking the rise in the diesel refining margin from 13.2 centimes per litre in 2025 to 25.7 centimes in early March 2026, and then to 36.4 centimes by early April 2026, according to the industry structure it cited.
Distributors and the state blamed first
Refiners were not the first target. When the Middle East crisis began, the French government publicised checks at petrol stations to verify that pump prices matched market prices. Some politicians then blamed the state itself, since taxes, excise duty and VAT make up about half of the price of petrol and diesel.
The Economy Ministry pushed back on that, noting that fuel consumption has fallen 5.5% since the start of the crisis, limiting the tax windfall to an extra 9 million euros since March compared with the same period last year. Over the same period, the ministry said, more than 1 billion euros had been paid out to help lower-income households cope with the price rises.
What refiners actually do
Drivers do not pump crude oil into their tanks. Petrol and diesel are transformed during refining, and the refined product has its own market and reference prices, separate from crude. The widely cited Brent crude price shows a general trend but does not set the exact price of fuel at the pump.
The gap between the price of the refined product and the price of crude oil is the refining margin, and it is this margin that has widened since the crisis began. But it is a gross margin, not the refiners' net profit: it also has to cover the energy used by refinery plants, maintenance, wages and site operating costs. A margin that has quadrupled does not mean refiners' profits have quadrupled, though it does not mean they have made no extra money from the crisis either.
Why refined prices are rising faster than crude
In 2024, the French government estimated that refining made up about 7% of the tax-inclusive price of diesel and 95-E10 unleaded petrol, against roughly 14% for transport and distribution, with taxes and VAT accounting for the largest share, around 53%. Refining alone does not set the pump price, but it can drive a large part of its short-term swings.
That is what is happening now: refined product prices are rising faster than crude prices because it is not crude oil that is scarce, but already-refined products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene. Several factors are behind this: renewed hostilities between Iran and the United States since late August disrupting traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, rising shipping insurance costs, a maritime blockade declared by Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, and an extended Russian moratorium on diesel exports.
TotalEnergies estimates that around 3 million barrels a day of refined products have been pulled from the market. Other analysts, combining the damage to refineries in the Middle East and Russia, put refining capacity currently offline at 6 to 7 million barrels a day.
Could refiners be made to act?
Refiners operate on market logic. They do not set prices by simply adding a fixed margin to their costs, but sell at the international market price for refined products. When that market is under strain because refined products are scarce, refiners collect the difference, while their production costs have not changed.
Refiners have moved before. In 2022, TotalEnergies introduced a 20-centime-per-litre discount at the pump, funded from its own margins, on top of a separate rebate announced by the government. This time, the company has instead opted to cap prices at its own stations.
Superprofits tax debate
The oil industry is the main beneficiary of the current crisis, with up to 24 million euros in superprofits expected across Europe this year. In late August, six European countries, Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Portugal and Spain, called for a new tax on superprofits, citing an investigation commissioned by the European Commission to establish whether refiners are exploiting the current situation to maximise profits.
France has not joined that push. TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanné said any superprofits tax would end the company's price cap at its stations.
In 2022, facing the energy crisis, the European Union introduced a tax on energy companies that raised less revenue than expected, particularly in France. Spain has separately introduced a tax on energy suppliers' profits.
A superprofits tax could allow for redistribution after the fact and could help fund the shift to electric vehicles, but it would not lower prices at the pump. Capping refining margins, meanwhile, carries the risk of creating shortages.
