Background Notes

Introduction

Clearances reflect the duty paid amounts of oil removed from tax warehouses. Clearances data provide a proxy for sales and the associated level of consumption but do not reflect actual consumption per se. First, clearances relate to Irish duty paid product. They do not include consumption on which Irish taxes have not been paid. Second, clearances reflect the timing of withdrawals of product from warehouses by manufacturers rather than the timing of consumption.

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. These monthly statistics show trends such as increased clearances of heating oils in unusually cold spells and reductions in clearances of road fuels in a period of restricted movement such as that resulting from COVID-19. This release includes information on monthly wholesale price indices for fuels and monthly mean temperature for Dublin Airport as an aid to users in understanding the trends.

Coverage

EU legislation on excise duties was largely 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.

Data Sources

Monthly excise clearances data were obtained directly from Revenue. Revenue publish annual excise clearances data at https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/excise/receipts-volume-and-price/excise-receipts-commodity.aspx

Excise Tax Rates

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 are given in the table below in euro per thousand litres for the fuels most relevant for this release.

National Oil Reserves Agency

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 Communications, Climate Action and Environment. NORA publish monthly statistics that are broadly consistent with the excise clearances but there are differences in coverage. The NORA statistics are available at https://www.nora.ie/statistics.312.html

Revisions

All data are subject to revision, particularly the most recent months.

Wholesale Price Index

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:

• before discounts or surcharges are applied
• excluding delivery charges itemised on the invoice separately
• before addition of direct subsidies
• exclusive of VAT
• inclusive of excise duty

Met Éireann

The monthly mean temperature data for Dublin Airport were taken directly from the Met Éireann website, combining historical data from the time series at https://www.met.ie/climate/available-data/historical-data with monthly 2020 data from live tables at https://www.met.ie/climate/available-data/monthly-data 

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