Clearances reflect the duty paid on oil removed from bonded warehouses. Clearances data provide a proxy for sales but do not reflect actual consumption. Clearances relate to Irish duty paid product. They do not include fuel volumes on which excise tax has not been paid. Clearances reflect the timing of withdrawals of product from warehouses by traders.
Excise duties are indirect taxes on the sale or use of specific products e.g. alcohol, tobacco, and mineral oils. They are usually applied as an amount per quantity of the product. The Revenue Commissioners collect statistics on the volumes of fuel clearances covered by excise taxes. This release includes information on monthly wholesale price indices for fuels and monthly mean air temperature for Dublin Airport as an aid to users in understanding the trends in fuel excise clearances.
EU legislation on excise duties was prompted by the launch of the Single Market in 1993. EU legislation was adopted to ensure that excise duties for certain products were applied in the same way and to the same products throughout the Single Market, and that Member States applied at least a minimum rate of excise duty. All revenue from excise duties goes entirely to the Member States. Included under the autodiesel and unleaded petrol clearance figures are substitute diesel and petrol fuels used as a propellant. Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO) volumes that are used as a standalone alternative product to autodiesel are not included in this release.
Monthly excise clearances data were obtained directly from Revenue. See Revenue website for published annual excise clearances data.
Excise duty on mineral oils is currently paid to the exchequer when the oils are removed from bonded warehouses. Current excise rates (including carbon taxes) that are applicable at the end of the release month (or the rate that applied for most of the relevant month) are given in the table below in euro per thousand litres for the fuels most relevant for this release.
| Fuel | Rate per 1000 litres |
|---|---|
| Autodiesel | €551.22 |
| Unleaded petrol | €638.91 |
| Marked gas oil | €184.30 |
| Kerosene | €141.82 |
| Auto LPG | €155.01 |
| Other LPG | €91.42 |
| Heavy fuel oil non-propellant | €187.34 |
| Heavy fuel oil for navigation | €551.22 |
NORA’s function is to arrange for the holding of national strategic oil stocks for supply in an emergency. NORA’s ongoing activities are partially funded by a levy imposed on disposals of oil products. The levy is paid by oil marketing companies and oil consumers on their relevant disposals of petroleum products in the State. Such companies are obliged to submit monthly reports to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. NORA publish monthly statistics that are broadly consistent with the excise clearances but there are differences in coverage. See NORA website for available NORA statistics. The NORA levy figures only include fuel volumes that the NORA levy was paid on.
All data are subject to revision particularly the most recent months.
Wholesale prices for the bulk supply of different categories of petroleum fuels are obtained from the major fuel suppliers. All indices in the series are based on prices at the 15th of the month. Quarterly and annual indices are simple averages of the corresponding monthly indices.
Prices used in the compilation of the indices are:
The monthly mean air temperature data for Dublin Airport were taken by combining historical data from the time series with monthly 2024 data from live tables on the Met Éireann website.
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