Morocco’s fuel market has recorded a second downward price adjustment in less than two weeks, as petroleum distributors applied a new round of reductions taking effect this Wednesday. The latest revision cuts diesel by 97 centimes per liter and petrol by 46 centimes per liter, building on a previous adjustment made on June 16, when petrol dropped by 60 centimes and diesel by 40 centimes per liter.
Following the new reduction, diesel — which had been trading at around 13.57 dirhams per liter after the June revision — is expected to settle at approximately 12.60 dirhams. Petrol, priced at around 14.30 dirhams since mid-June, should now fall to approximately 13.85 dirhams per liter. These figures remain indicative, as price variations can persist between fuel distributors and across different regions of the kingdom.
The successive reductions partly reflect declining prices on international crude markets, which have fed through to retail pump prices under Morocco’s liberalized fuel pricing system. The speed and scale of the adjustments have nonetheless renewed public attention on how the downstream fuel sector is structured and regulated.
The new reduction reignites a structural debate that the Competition Council has been advancing for some time. The institution continues to call for an overhaul of the current pricing mechanism, which is based on bimonthly collective revisions applied in near-uniform fashion by all distributors — an arrangement that critics argue stifles genuine price competition and slows the pass-through of market gains to consumers.
The Competition Council’s preferred model would see each operator adopt autonomous pricing policies, enabling more reactive and market-driven adjustments. Whether the rapid succession of price cuts adds momentum to that reform push remains to be seen, but the debate over Morocco’s fuel pricing architecture has rarely been more timely.
