The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (Thursday, May 7) published a report on fuel excise clearances for January.

The data shows that clearances of marked gas oil, also known as green diesel, decreased by 3.1% in January 2026 (85 million litres), when compared with January 2025 (88 million litres).

Autodiesel, unleaded petrol, and kerosene all had higher clearances in January 2026 on levels seen in the same month a year previously.

CSO

Dr. Robert Stapleton, statistician in the CSO's Climate and Energy Division, explained that "clearances are the duty paid on the quantity of oil removed from bonded warehouses and provide a proxy for sales".

Excise clearances of unleaded petrol in January 2026 at 89 million litres were 10% higher than in January 2025.

This was the highest volume of unleaded petrol clearances recorded for the month of January since 2017.

The report shows that clearances for kerosene, traditionally used for home heating, were up 6.6% on January 2025 to stand at 129 million litres.

"There was a 3% decline to 3.4 billion litres in autodiesel excise clearances when comparing the 12-month rolling period of February 2025-January 2026 with February 2024-January 2025," Stapleton said.

Unleaded petrol excise clearances rose by 6.2% when comparing both 12-month rolling periods.

Green diesel excise clearances went up by 1.5% over that timeframe.

While kerosene excise clearances at 972 million litres were 1.2% higher when comparing the 12-month rolling period of February 2025-January 2026 with February 2024-January 2025.

Wholesale prices of autodiesel, petrol and gas oil (other than autodiesel) were all higher in January 2026 compared with December 2025.