The average UK petrol price reached a record high of 142.94p a litre on Sunday – an increase of almost 30p a year – while diesel is a little off its all-time maximum.
Diesel reached 146.50p a litre on Sunday, still 1.43p short of its April 2012 all-time high of 147.93p, the AA announced today.
Fellow motoring group the RAC has said fuel price rises are mainly due to the rapidly increasing cost of oil, but says the introduction of E10 – a new petrol blend which contains less carbon – has also had an impact.
The margin retailers are taking on every litre sold is also greater than it was prior to the start of the pandemic, putting further upward pressure on prices.
Ironically, at the end of last week, wholesale diesel to be delivered to forecourts was still around 6p a litre more expensive than petrol – as it had a fortnight earlier.
Record petrol prices also arrived the weekend before 300,000 London residents within the newly extended Ultra Low Emission Zone, and tens of thousands more from outside, face a daily £12.50 charge for driving older cars that don’t comply with emissions restrictions.
The rebound from pandemic lows of 106.48p in mid May 2020 has seen petrol climb rapidly, with short lulls in November 2020 at around 114p a litre and this August at 135p a litre.
This compares with a two-and-a-half-year rebound following the financial crash in 2008-9. That went in two hops, from 86p a litre in January 2009 to 121.5p in May 2010 and then above 137p in May 2011. Overall, that was a rise of 51p a litre.
However, the 2009 to 2011 period saw fuel duty rise from 52.35 pence per litre to 58.95 pence per litre in January 2011, before falling back to 57.95 pence per litre the following March. VAT also rose to 20%.
Luke Bosdet, the AA’s fuel price spokesman, said: ‘Whether it’s down to oil producers, market speculators, Treasury taxes or struggling retailers trying to balance their margins, record pump prices must be saying to drivers with the means that it is time to make the switch to electric.
‘As for poorer motorists, many of them now facing daily charges to drive in cities, there is no escape. It’s a return to cutting back on other consumer spending, perhaps even heating or food, to keep the car that gets them to work on the road.’
Source: Daily Mail
