UAE petrol prices announced for December 2021

Motorists will pay slightly less at the pumps after two months of rises

Fuel prices will decrease in December. Reem Mohammed / The National

There will be some relief at the petrol pumps for motorists across the UAE in December as prices are set to fall.

The country's fuel price committee confirmed on Monday that the cost of Super 98, Special 95 and diesel would all drop by about 1 per cent, compared to November.

The breakdown per litre is as follows:

• Super 98: Dh2.77 – down from Dh2.80 in November

• Special 95: Dh2.66 – down from Dh2.69 in November

• Diesel: Dh2.77 – down from Dh2.81 in November

Petrol prices in the UAE were liberalised in August 2015 to allow them to move in line with the market.

They were frozen by the Fuel Price Committee last year after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. They then started to adjust again in March to reflect the market movement.

Prices have since risen considerably – from Dh1.80 for Special 95 in March, to a high of Dh2.69 in November amid the global economic recovery from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, after oil prices reached a multi-year peak in late October, markets were rattled last week with the discovery of the new Omicron variant, which could dampen economic growth and hit fuel demand. On Friday, Brent slid 11.55 per cent and West Texas Intermediate dropped 13.06 per cent, in the largest daily decline since April 2020.

Oil rebounded this morning from Friday's Omicron-driven rout. Brent, however, pared some of its gains as Japan said it would ban the entry of foreign visitors because of concerns over the new Covid-19 strain.

With cases seen from Hong Kong to Canada, the World Health Organisation said that understanding the variant would take days or weeks.

“The sell-off on Friday appeared a complete overreaction,” Daniel Hynes, a senior commodities strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, told Bloomberg. “While it’s still too early to estimate what this could mean for oil demand, we think the market will find some support as opportunistic buying emerges.”

Brent crude futures climbed $3.11, or 4.3 per cent, to $75.83 a barrel, after falling $9.50 on Friday.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up $3.47, or 5.1 per cent, at $71.62 a barrel, having tumbled $10.24 in the previous session.