The biggest fuel retailers should cut the price of petrol by at least 5p a litre to 150p to reflect their far lower wholesale costs, according to the RAC.
The motoring organisation also said that drivers are not seeing the benefit of the UK government’s 5p duty cut brought in after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Oil prices soared following the invasion, but currently stand at around $90 a barrel compared with last summer’s peak of more than $120 a barrel.
RAC data shows that the delivered wholesale price of petrol averaged just over 113p last week. With the UK average price of unleaded standing at 155.33p, it means that the average retailer margin was more than 16p a litre before VAT is applied. This is considerably higher than the long-term average of 7p a litre and is even far higher the 10p margin that smaller, independent retailers say is now fair due to inflation.
Diesel, which currently averages 162p across the country, is also overpriced by around 4p a litre, the RAC said. Last week a litre of wholesale diesel averaged 123p, making the average retailer margin around 12p, compared to the 8p long-term figure tracked by the RAC since 2012.
“Drivers are still losing out massively when wholesale prices come down,” said RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams. “But in Northern Ireland where the supermarkets don’t dominate fuel retailing drivers are getting fairer deal with a litre of unleaded costing 150p and diesel 157p — 5p less than the UK average.”
Williams added that with margins up across the board, the Treasury should be “furious” that the 5p-a-litre duty cut is not being passed on at forecourts.
