Morocco Fuel Market Shows No Anti-Competitive Behavior as Pump Prices Rise
Casablanca – Morocco’s Competition Council said it found no anti-competitive behavior in the national fuel market, even as pump prices continued to rise through late March and early April in line with international trends.
In a new note covering the period from March 16 to April 1, the council said no signs of collusion were identified in the diesel and gasoline market.
Still, it once again pointed to the tendency of operators to revise prices on the same dates and by similar amounts, saying this limits pricing flexibility and can slow the way global price swings are reflected at Moroccan pumps.
The observation extends the council’s first review, which covered March 1 to 16, a period already marked by strong increases in international refined fuel prices amid geopolitical tensions and volatility on global energy markets.
According to the latest assessment, this synchronized pricing pattern partly stems from the old regulated system, when revisions traditionally took place on the 1st and 16th of each month. In today’s liberalized market, the council said keeping that timetable is becoming less relevant.
It called on operators to move toward pricing decisions that better reflect each company’s own conditions, including supply frequency, purchasing contracts, stock levels, and commercial strategy, while preserving market stability.
The figures show that over the full period from March 1 to April 1, the pass-through of international price movements remained uneven depending on the fuel type.
For diesel, the transmission remained only partial, with a total gap of minus MAD 1.35 ($0.15) per liter between international benchmark movements and pump prices. The council nevertheless noted an improvement during the second half of the review period, suggesting the lag in domestic price adjustments narrowed somewhat.
Gasoline moved differently. Across the two periods, price increases at the pump exceeded the rise in international quotations, leaving a total positive gap of MAD 0.33 ($0.036) per liter.
That finding lines up with what motorists have been seeing in real life. Since the start of April, fuel distributors have rolled out another increase, with diesel reaching around MAD 14.52 ($1.57) per liter and gasoline about MAD 15.48 ($1,67), according to local reports, as the international oil market stayed under pressure.
The council said these differences point to a persistent asymmetry in how prices are transmitted between diesel and gasoline, even though both products are being pushed higher by the same sustained rise on international markets.
For consumers, the result has been familiar. Prices are going up, but not always at the same speed or by the same logic depending on the fuel, keeping the debate over transparency and competition in Morocco’s downstream fuel market very much alive, as global oil prices remain under pressure from the 2026 Strait of Hormuz shipping disruption and broader Middle East supply tensions.
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