Petrol being sold for less than £1 a litre
A PETROL station in Birmingham is charging less than £1 a litre for fuel as wholesale prices fall to their lowest level since the 2008 financial crash.
Oil prices have plummeted during the coronavirus crisis, and a Murco fuel station near Kings Heath this week dropped its prices to 99.7p a litre for unleaded.
Wholesaler Costco has also cut the price of petrol to 99.9p, but this is available only to shoppers who pay a membership fee.
Drivers have seen prices below £1 a litre only once since 2008. In early 2016, the average price of petrol fell to 101.80p but supermarkets charged less.
AA fuel spokesman Luke Bosdet said: ‘We predicted that £1 a litre would return to UK forecourts.
However, drivers need to remember that falling pump prices shouldn’t be an incentive to break the lockdown.
‘But where there is a chance to cut costs for beleaguered households whose income has fallen dramatically due to the impact of coronavirus, cheaper petrol and diesel is very welcome.’
It comes after Morrisons and Asda announced an ‘unprecedented’ cut of 12p a litre in the biggest drop ever recorded by RAC fuel analysts.
Although supermarkets have made big cuts, average prices have fallen by just 3 per cent since Christmas – compared to a 22 per cent fall in wholesale prices.
On Wednesday, the average price of unleaded was 118.08p a litre, with diesel at 121.2p.
Campaigners at Fair Fuel UK say this means drivers are paying £11 more to fill their tank than they should be.
The Petrol Retailers Association says forecourts are keeping prices relatively high to stop them going out of business during Britain’s lockdown. They are keen to avoid a repeat of events in Italy, where plunging traffic levels have forced many smaller independent forecourts to close.
A spokesman said: ‘Our top priority is keeping petrol stations open, so essential goods can be moved and so key workers can get to work.
‘It is vital that we keep as many petrol stations as possible open to supply fuel to
‘Not an incentive to break lockdown’
frontline health staff, van and lorry drivers and other key workers, especially in rural areas often served by small, family forecourt businesses struggling to survive.’
The spokesman added: ‘With the motorways and roads emptying fast, independent petrol stations are keeping prices as low and competitive as possible to stay in business.’ However, RAC fuel spokesman
Simon Williams said smaller independent forecourts, who ‘already have been struggling due to a loss of trade recently’ would be ‘extremely hard-pushed to reduce their prices at the present time with fewer people driving’.
He said it was vital they stay in business as they provide ‘such an important service to drivers in parts of the country where the supermarkets have no footprint’.
The last time fuel prices fell so dramatically was during the crash of 2008, when the average price of petrol slipped by around 2p a litre on three successive weekends in October 2008 — with the price of petrol dropping below £1 a litre in the final weekend of the month.
During that time, the wholesale cost of petrol was in fact higher than it is today.
When wholesale unleaded prices bottomed out on Christmas Eve 2008, it fell to 16.6p per litre.
So far this week, wholesale petrol has averaged 15.7p per litre, the AA says.