If the price remains at 200 lek/liter, Albanians will pay 200 million euros more this year for oil

2026-03-18 07:23:00, Ekonomi CNA

If the price remains at 200 lek/liter, Albanians will pay 200 million euros more

In 2025, the number of vehicles in circulation in the country exceeded 1 million (1,061) for the first time, of which 850 thousand are cars.

In the last two years alone, 2024-2025, around 100 thousand vehicles have been added to circulation per year, according to data from the General Directorate of Road Transport.

Another 14,000 vehicles were imported in the first two months of 2026, an increase of 5%. Although the import of electric vehicles has been increasing in recent years, they remain very low in relation to the total, at only 1.3%.

Diesel vehicles dominate, unlike Europe, which is oriented towards gasoline, hybrid, or electric vehicles. Nearly 69% of vehicles circulating in the country are powered by diesel, 19% are gasoline, while nearly 8% are gasoline-gas hybrids, according to data from the DPSHTRR. About 20% of vehicles in 2025 were imported from South Korea, whose cheap prices encouraged buyers in the country.

The high number of vehicles that have been added in the last two years has also increased fuel consumption, which in 2025 reached a record of 740 thousand tons, according to official data from the Ministry of Finance.

Converted into liters, consumption reached around 890 million in 2025. With an average value of 173 lek/liter, it turns out that Albanian consumers spent 154 billion lek, or almost 1.6 billion euros, to buy fuel in 2025.

2026 started with unchanged prices, but the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East in early March caused the black one to jump to over $100 per barrel, from less than $70 until the end of February. In Albania, the increase was almost immediate and yesterday a liter of oil was trading at an average of 199 lek.

If the conflict continues and oil continues at these levels, "Monitor" has calculated, based on consumption by month in 2025, that the additional payment for the increased price will fluctuate from 1.6-2.3 billion lek (16-23 million euros) per month, or a total of about 19.4 billion lek (an additional 200 million euros), for the period March-December 2026.

The highest fuel consumption is in the period June-August, when the summer holidays are, and in December, which is the end-of-year holidays (see graph).

If the war escalates and the price on the stock exchanges reaches $150 per barrel, market players have warned that oil in the country could reach up to 250 lek per liter, which would increase monthly expenses by an average of 50-70 million euros.

Albania is one of the countries with the highest oil prices in Europe, while in terms of purchasing power it holds a record, with almost twice as much as the region.

One of the reasons for the high price is the tax burden, which accounts for more than 60% of the final price. The circulation tax alone is 27 lek per liter. According to data from the Ministry of Finance, in 2025 alone, about 21.3 billion lek (almost 220 million euros) were collected from the circulation tax.

In theory, these funds should go towards the maintenance and improvement of the road network. In practice, many roads, including national ones, such as Tirana-Durrës, are completely depreciated. If this tax were to be abolished, at least citizens would be compensated for the cost of price increases resulting from the consequences of the war!/ Monitor