Frequently Asked Questions
What is the EU Fuel Stress Index?
The EU Fuel Stress Index is a 0–100 measure of how stressful fuel prices are in the European Union right now, compared to 20+ years of historical data. A score of 0 means fuel is relaxed (cheap and stable), 100 means crisis-level (expensive, fast-rising, volatile). It's modeled after well-known indexes like Crypto Fear & Greed, but uses real consumer fuel prices from the EC Weekly Oil Bulletin.
How is the index calculated?
The index combines three factors: percentile rank of the current price vs historical prices (50% weight), price momentum over 12 weeks (25%), and weekly price volatility (25%). The final weighted score is clamped to a 0–100 range. The formula is the same for both petrol (Euro 95) and diesel, computed independently.
How often is the index updated?
The index is updated weekly, every Thursday, when the European Commission publishes its Weekly Oil Bulletin (typically around 15:00 EET). New fuel prices for all 27 EU member states are imported and the stress index is recalculated for the new week.
What's the highest stress level ever recorded?
The EU Petrol stress index hit its all-time high of 82.8 on May 23, 2022. Diesel peaked at 94.7 on May 4, 2026. These all-time highs reflect both the price level and how rapidly prices were rising at the time.
Where does the data come from?
All fuel prices come from the
European Commission's official Weekly Oil Bulletin, published every Thursday. It covers all 27 EU member states with weekly consumer prices for petrol (Euro 95) and diesel, including all taxes. We've imported every weekly bulletin since January 2005 — over 1,000 weeks of data.
Why is this different from the Crypto Fear & Greed Index?
Both indexes use 0–100 scales to summarize market state, but the inputs differ. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index uses market sentiment, social media volume, momentum, and volatility of cryptocurrencies. The EU Fuel Stress Index uses 20+ years of weekly fuel price data, momentum, and volatility — all anchored to real consumer prices at the pump, not market sentiment.
Methodology
The EU Fuel Stress Index combines three statistical measures to produce a single 0–100 score:
percentile rank (50%) measures how the current price compares to all historical prices in the selected window;
momentum (25%) tracks the 12-week percentage change in price;
volatility (25%) measures the standard deviation of weekly price changes over the last 12 weeks.
The final formula is: Index = 0.5 × percentile + 0.25 × momentum + 0.25 × volatility, clamped to 0–100.
For the EU aggregate, we use a floating composition: countries are included from their date of EU accession (Bulgaria and Romania from 2007, Croatia from 2013). The United Kingdom is excluded throughout for consistency. National indexes use each country's own historical series independently.
Data updates every Thursday from the EC Weekly Oil Bulletin. The index is recomputed for all 27 EU member states across the full historical window each week. Zero or missing prices are excluded; momentum and volatility require at least 12 weeks of prior data.
European Union Petrol