The cost of filling a 1,000-litre heating oil tank in Cyprus has risen by almost €500 since March, prompting fresh questions over whether retail fuel prices are being properly monitored. 

The consumers association stated that it accepts that turmoil in the Middle East has pushed international energy costs higher.

Its concern, it explained, is whether those pressures fully explain the increases passed on to Cypriot motorists and households.

Association president Marios Drousiotis told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) on Thursday that the figures offered “strong indications that something is wrong with fuel prices in Cyprus”, calling on the authorities to provide evidence that the rises were justified. 

Heating oil has recorded the steepest increase. According to the association, its price climbed from €0.950 per litre on March 1 to €1.438 on August 13, a rise of 48.8 cents. 

For a household buying 1,000 litres, that translates into an additional €488. Drousiotis said the timing was becoming increasingly concerning as consumers prepared for the colder months.

“That is why we are concerned about heating oil now and we believe that measures must be taken,” he said, pointing to the need for households to begin filling their tanks ahead of winter.

Motorists have faced sizeable increases of their own. The price of 95-octane petrol rose from €1.315 to €1.595 per litre over the same period, while diesel went from €1.413 to €1.796. 

That represents a rise of about 21 per cent for petrol and 26 per cent for diesel, based on the association’s calculations.

Drousiotis said the increases were recorded despite the government’s 8.3-cent subsidy, meaning they would have been still higher without it.

The association’s concerns go beyond the movement in prices. It has repeatedly asked the consumer protection service for data showing how it determines whether retail prices remain reasonable. 

According to Drousiotis, the service has maintained that the market is being monitored and current prices are justified.

Requests for the emphasising information, however, have been rejected on the grounds that it is confidential.

Drousiotis disputed that all the material needed to assess prices was commercially sensitive, arguing that between 30 and 40 per cent of the information used in the monitoring process could be released without breaching confidentiality. 

Questions have also been raised over how the subsidy was applied when it came into force in early April.

The association’s data showed that 19 petrol stations did not reduce their prices by the full 8.3 cents, while another 97 made a smaller reduction.

About ten days later, after one petroleum company announced an increase in petrol prices, 22 stations operated by other companies also raised their prices, Drousiotis said. 

The association subsequently asked whether failing to pass on the subsidy in full could amount to an offence.

The issue was initially referred to the finance ministry before being returned to the service, which found that no offence had been committed.

Drousiotis said the cases suggested serious weaknesses in the way the market was being supervised.

“These are clear examples that either prices are not being monitored or they are being monitored and someone is turning a blind eye,” he argued.

President Nikos Christodoulides, the finance minister and the consumer protection service had all promised close scrutiny of the market when the subsidy was introduced.

Drousiotis said the association’s findings cast doubt on how effective that scrutiny had been.

“If you do not ensure that the subsidy will definitely end up with the consumer, why do you give a subsidy,” he asked. “So that it ends up in the cash registers of the petrol stations or I don’t know where else?”

For now, he said, consumers had received no convincing explanation for the scale of the increases, while the association saw little willingness from the government to tighten controls.

“I don’t know if this is because they can’t or because they don’t want to,” Drousiotis said. “Let them answer that for us.”