Petrol at 8p a litre? Where in the world…

A new study by car dealer group Evans Halshaw and This is Money has revealed the top 10 cheapest places in the world for petrol.

Looking pretty smug at the top is Venezuela, where petrol costs just 8p a litre – so cheap, in fact, that petrol smuggling is said to be a bigger problem than drug smuggling. No wonder, when in neighbouring Columbia fuel costs 40 times as much.

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It makes Venezuela sound like petrolhead paradise – until you learn the average monthly Venezuelan wage is just £354.48. This means 2.73% of earnings are spent on keeping the car running there, on average.

The situation is even worse in Turkmenistan. Here petrol costs 17p a litre – seventh on the top 10 list – but the average wage is just £115.42, meaning the study’s calculated monthly bill of £20.53 is equivalent to 17.79% of earnings.

Only three of the top 10 most expensive places to buy petrol do worse than this: Eritrea (61.1%), Turkey (34.2%) and Greece (24.4%).

So before you emigrate, clearly you need to look for a country where petrol is not only cheap but earnings are also high – which essentially means somewhere in the Middle East.

Qatar is your best bet, as petrol is just 12p a litre and the average monthly income is an enormous £3,664.92 – meaning just 0.4% of the take home is devoted to fuelling the motor.

But then, according to Forbes Magazine, Qatar is the richest country in the world. We suspect the entry requirements for a resident’s visa might well be beyond us.

Anyhoo, here’s the full top 10 breakdown for the countries with the cheapest petrol, in reverse order:

10 ) Iran

Price per litre: 21p / Monthly cost: £25.36 / Income (after tax): £388.68 / Percentage spend: 6.53%

Joint 7 ) Algeria

Price per litre: 17p / Monthly cost: £20.53 / Income (after tax): £173.26 / Percentage spend: 11.85%

Joint 7 ) Kuwait

Price per litre: 17p / Monthly cost: £20.53 / Income (after tax): £1,703.98 / Percentage spend: 1.2%

Joint 7 ) Turkmenistan

Price per litre: 17p / Monthly cost: 20.53 / Income (after tax): £115.42 / Percentage spend: 17.79%

Joint 5 ) Libya

Price per litre: 15p / Monthly cost: £18.12 / Income (after tax): £544.94 / Percentage spend: 3.32%

Joint 5 ) Bahrain

Price per litre: 15p / Monthly cost: £18.12 / Income (after tax): £998.19 / Percentage spend: 1.81%

4 ) Qatar

Price per litre: 12p / Monthly cost: £14.49 / Income (after tax): £3,664.92 / Percentage spend: 0.40%

3 ) Saudi Arabia

Price per litre: 10p / Monthly cost: £12.08 / Income (after tax): £1,234.78 / Percentage spend: 0.98%

2 ) Egypt

Price per litre: 9p / Monthly cost: £10.87 / Income (after tax): 247.35 / Percentage spend: 4.39%

1 ) Venezuela

Price per litre: 8p / Monthly cost: £9.66 / Income (after tax): £354.48 / Percentage spend: 2.73%

Report: are petrol prices being fixed?

The UK’s fuel price postcode lottery

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