First of all, stay calm. The attendant at the Carburantes Ibiza gas station holds up the palms of her hands as a sign of “patience, just a moment, don’t overwhelm me”, when she is asked how to order petrol. It is the first day of the fuel discount and, although the cash register does almost all the work, the application that the service stations have improvised to assist with the situation is neither perfect nor particularly fast. The woman is gradually learning the intricacies of the new procedure, but she needs to focus and not be thrown off track. In this case, as in the case of Repsol in ses Figueretes, the procedure is simple: if you ask for 40 euros of 95 gasoline, you can fill up the same liters (21.75 at a price of 1.829 euros per liter) as if you paid that amount, although you only pay 35.65 euros. The discount of 20 cents per liter amounts in this case to 4.35 euros. All details are shown on the receipt. The digits on the panels of the gas stations and each pump reflect the total price, without the 20 cent discount.
“Some people don’t quite understand. They ask for 40 euros, but we only serve them 35.65 euros when applying the discount. Even so, some people insist that they want 40 euros. In that case, what they should do is ask for more euros so that, with the discount, they get 40 euros”, says Mariano Matutes, manager of Carburantes Ibiza: “It is impossible, for the moment, to ask for it in any other way. We will have to wait for the definitive computer program to be created”. This program is being developed by a company in Barcelona that works for service stations all over Spain.
At the Galp gas station on Avenida de Sant Josep (Vila), the mechanism differs: if you ask for 40 euros, they charge 40 euros, but you fill up with the liters corresponding to that amount plus the discount applied, in this case, 24.11 liters. In addition, they still allow a 4% discount with a card from a well-known supermarket, but it is only applied after filling the tank.
At Carburantes Ibiza, for example, 95 gasoline cost four cents less yesterday than two days ago. At Galp, six cents less. At the Repsol on the PM-810, two less; seven less at the one on the PM-808 and at the one on the carretera de Sant Joan of the same brand
Matutes assures that, contrary to what has been said, in the last few days they have not added five cents (those that the oil companies pay as discount) to the price of the fuel: “In fact, prices have dropped in Ibiza in the last days. Prices oscillate throughout the year. Now, each tanker comes to us with a different one. Sometimes we can take it, sometimes we can’t. We go up, we go down…. We go up, we go down…”. At Carburantes Ibiza, for example, 95 gasoline cost four cents less yesterday than two days ago. At Galp, six cents less. At the Repsol on the PM-810, two less; seven less at the one of the PM-808 and at the one on the carratera de Sant Joan of the same brand.
Those five cents are paid by the big oil companies, not by the gas station owners, who pay that amount out of pocket in advance: “And they and the State must return the 20 cents to us, either through the tax authority or through the oil company”.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.