Vladimir Putin’s ruthless chokehold of the European energy market may have taken a toll on the UK as new figures reveal British petrol and electricity prices are among the highest in Europe.
Figures published on Monday by delivery management experts Urbantz have ranked the UK 14th on a list of 40 European countries with the most expensive fuel.
The study estimates Britons spend on average about 26 percent of their weekly wages on petrol and electricity combined.
An average 55-liter tank of petrol was estimated to cost £81 ($108), while electricity was estimated to cost an average of £39 ($52) a week.
The figures indicate British customers are forking out £121 ($161) on petrol and electricity each week – more than 26 other European nations.
The report emerged just days after a London-based think tank warned Express.co.uk that Russia has the capacity to shut down ATMs and petrol stations all across the UK.
Concerns have also been raised about Russia’s alleged involvement in the global energy crunch, which has caused nearly 30 UK energy suppliers to go bust this year.
Moscow has been accused of withholding critical gas supplies from Europe in a bid to gain political leverage over the European Union.
Many experts believe President Vladimir Putin has weaponized Russia’s gas exports to push through the approval of the controversial Nord Stream 2 project.
Nord Stream 2 runs directly from Russia to Germany, which was ranked third on the Urbantz list, and bypasses Poland and Ukraine in the Baltic.
Russian officials have, of course, denied meddling with the European markets but Mr. Putin has, quite tellingly, argued that approving the pipeline would solve Europe’s problems.
He has also blamed Europe’s push for green, renewable energy as the source of its woes.
Speaking during a government meeting in early October, he claimed the European market has been gripped by “hysteria and some confusion” in the wake of skyrocketing energy prices.
The cost of wholesale gas alone has risen by more than 600 percent this year.
Now, according to the report published by Urbantz, Britons are experiencing some of the most expensive petrol and electricity prices in Europe.
At the top of the list is Finland, where customers are estimated to spend an average of £179 ($238) on petrol and electricity.
According to Urbantz, this is about 19 percent of a weekly salary of £918 ($1,220).
Sweden was ranked as the second most expensive country for fuel and electricity, at an average price of £165 ($219) per week.
Compared to Finland, this is about 30 percent of a weekly salary of £543 ($721).
The top 15 countries in order from most expensive to least are Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, France, UK, and Greece.
An Urbantz spokesperson said: “With the cost of petrol and electricity skyrocketing due to rising wholesale costs, this data offers a striking picture of where the UK sits in Europe when it comes to the average cost of fuel.
“Despite earning among the lowest weekly salaries in the Western and Northern Europe, we still have some of the highest electricity and petrol prices, only fuelled by recent supply chain issues and the soaring global price of oil.
“In the UK, electricity and petrol prices currently swallow up over a quarter – 27 percent – of the average weekly wage, and we can only expect prices to increase further with the recent collapse of energy suppliers and upcoming cold weather.”
At the bottom of the list is Kazakhstan, which straddles the border between Europe and Central Asia.
In Kazakhstan, a tank of petrol was estimated to cost an average of £25 ($33) and the average electricity bill is about £7.80 ($10.36).
Read more at Daily Express
What sane rational person didn’t see a problem getting and depending on energy from Russia????
Odd that a “Tory” should want to interfere in the markets. What party does Boris de facto belong to now? If he really wants net zero, he would provide alternative sources of energy. Not having done so, he must be a Putin stooge. Putin’s party is called United Russia, so maybe Boris (what a name) sees UK as a Russian province. How nice for a country that fought to keep Hitler and Stalin out of Western Europe.
No, former East German Angela Merkel and the multitude of other fake climate crisis fearmongerers pushed Germany and Denmark to 3rd and 2nd highest energy costs in the world more than ten years ago. (more than three times what I pay in Saskatchewan, Canada) Completely ignorant that life on earth is composed entirely of little carbon sacks of water called cells. Completely ignorant how dangerously low CO2 levels remain for our carbon based life on earth. And how temperatures remain well within the coldest natural range since multicellular life began. Television ‘journalists’ remain completely ignorant of CO2 biology. Completely ignorant that all life dies without CO2. Completely ignorant that life ESSENTIAL CO2 has been dangerously and inexorably declining from our carbon based life’s beginnings of CO2 more than twenty times those of today. And completely ignorant that more CO2 is the greenest gift to the environment that humanity has ever given. Completely ignorant that more green CO2 has made life stronger, more abundant, more drought tolerant and greener. And that makes fossil fuels the ONLY green energy. Because the two basic ingredients of life on earth, CO2 and H2O, are the same two major molecular products of using coal, oil, and gas – CO2 and H2O. That is the science of biology and the CO2 fertilization effect. Something ‘journalists’ know nothing about. Barry Bateman, B.Sc.Advanced(biology)
Yes, Barry. but I say that even if carbon dioxide is currently deficient, we’re coping well. My crop yields are upward, year after year.
Right now, my generator is running because the wind knocked out the power supply and I had a full can of gasoline. I’m disconnected from solar (it’s dark anyway) and wind turbines. Green energy is a rubber crutch.
Britain has oil, natural gas and coal. The “keep it in the ground” nutters are blocking the benefits of domestic supplies, including jobs, from the public. Also, this article does not include any reference to taxes on fossil fuels, of which there are several.
Pleasing the warmists requires personal sacrifice. If you accept their abuse unconditionally, they have you over a barrel.
Quite right. The U.K. has more than enough reserves of fossil fuels to be energy independent, or even a major energy exporting nation. A lot of this is shale gas which is currently unobtainable as fracking is currently banned, however the problems go much deeper as energy companies don’t want to invest large sums of money in exploring for new deposits in the North Sea as they’re not sure that our net zero obsessed government will give approval for new oil/gas fields to start production. Combined with some of the highest taxes on petrol/diesel in the world, the high cost of energy in the U.K. is entirely down to government policy, and blaming Putin is nothing more than a red herring.
Sonny, it’s difficult to feel too much sympathy for these European countries who are turning over their energy requirements to an autocratic, near dictatorial, head like Putin. Especially, as you say, England (as are the other European countries) have energy resources they refuse to tap due to “green energy” nonsense.