UAE has the world’s fifth cheapest petrol prices

For those of us in the UAE complaining about the rising cost of vehicle ownership thanks to two new tollgates coming up in mid-April, here’s some news.

The UAE boasts of the fifth cheapest petrol prices in the whole wide world – in fact, we pay less than one-fifth of the money that consumers pay for petrol in Turkey, which has the world’s most expensive petrol prices.

According to the Bloomberg Gas Price Ranking, which rates 60 countries by average retail price and by “pain at the pump,” petrol in Turkey retails at an astounding $9.89 per gallon. Compared with that, the $1.77 per gallon that we pay in the UAE can be considered a steal.

Where can you find the cheapest petrol? Well, since you asked, it’s Venezuela, where a gallon of refined black gold retails for less than what you’d give your kid in daily pocket money – it’s $0.06 for a gallon. Not sure why they charge customers at all!

The second on the list of the world’s cheapest petrol prices is GCC peer Saudi Arabia, where petrol retails for as cheap as $0.45 per gallon, followed by Kuwait ($0.81 per gallon), and then Egypt ($1.14 per gallon).

While the UAE follows Egypt as the cheapest destination to fill up your car tank on the Bloomberg Gas Price Ranking, there are other countries that Bloomberg doesn’t include in the list but where a gallon of petrol costs less than the UAE.

Neighbouring Oman, for instance, retails petrol at cheaper than what it is sold in the UAE, as do other Arab nations such as Libya, Qatar, Bahrain and Algeria.

While the prices of petrol in the UAE remains one of the cheapest in the world, if these countries were indeed included in the ranking, the UAE wouldn’t feature among the Top 10 nations with the cheapest petrol prices.

Nevertheless, global financial advisory bodies including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have long recommended that countries in the Gulf region must end explicit fuel subsidy in order to reform their consumption patterns and enhance industrial efficiency.