Unleaded up by 4c, diesel goes down 4c

The fuel price increase is nothing at all to do with Malta: it is the International Oil Price Cartel that dictates prices. For as long as Malta relies on Oil as the mainstay of its transportation fuels this will always be so. The Government (and here it applies to any Government regardless of political persuasion) has no choice but to pass on the increases to the public. If they didnot you would find the loss of revenue being placed as Taxes on other Services and Goods and I doubt whether any of those objecting would be too happy to pay for those increases. The alternative has either to be being more frugal in driving around or vying for alternative means of transport or alternative fuel sources. Most people I see driving around in Malta appear to be driving frugally already. There are some further benefits that can be obtained but they are marginal and may only conserve around 5% extra fuel use. The use of an alternative means of transport - such as buses - is a potential but not that practical. We are all to used to being independently minded and public transport systems do not lend themselves to the same dgree of being flexible. When it comes to an alternative system for driving vehicles the position is even more dire. Regardless of any move to provide electrically driven cars on a mass scale the issue is that the provision of an alternative supply of power to mass supply these vehicles is somewhat "pie-in-the-sky" for most countries. Regardless of the "so-called" claims that upon one charge a car could travel 150 kilometres the need of recharging for a period of up to 12 hours a time and the provision of e real electrical energy source that is truly comparable and renewable - for most countries - is again thwarted by difficulties. Yes we can burn all the trees and grass and waste there is around but do we really want to? We could obviously use wind/solar/photo-voltaic/hot-rocks/sea(wave) energy and the likes but for most countries that have large land masses (not Malta) and ample sites to locate both wind and solar/photo-voltaic energy production plants (again not Malta) or ample locations for use of these at sea (Malta does have these) then there seems to be still problems. We are still lovers of personal vehicles and it has been said that even if the prices of these fuels went up to €3-00 per litre (a not unreasonable scenarion bearing in miond what the Chinese people aspire to in personal transport) then the obvious may have to be seeking a substitute for liquid fuels. This can be done as Brazil has demoinstrated. But in Malta it cannot be from growing food crops. Maybe then the proposal we saw earlier in March about a renewable fuel programme for Malta would be the answer. If that company can produce say 50% of all the fuel needed for transport from such a system (and that seems possible looking at what they said) then we will have at least a 50% (possibly higher) availability of fuel from this for our cars by 2020. I look forward to this. And with the prospect that the fuel costs will be considerably lower than gasoline/Diesel by 40% we as the public will be the better off for this. Dear Government of Malta let them start this here sooner rather than later, we deserve it. What have you got to lose? So then what about vehicles using other sources of drive.

Increasing petrol prices just before summer has become a custom. Look what happened the last two years. In Malta it is not the markets that influence the price of petrol, but government's policy. . It is more than clear that government wants Maltese to walk during summer, not to use their cars, and to leave their boats in their shed.