Diesel goes below £1 per litre
Supermarkets including Asda, Morsisons, Tesco and Sainsbury have cut diesel to below £1 per litre – its cheapest since 2009.
The cut reflects further falls in the oil price, which is its lowest for 11 years. While the price cut is good news for drivers, RAC Fuel Watch spokesman Pete Williams said it is long overdue. He said, ‘The UK’s 11 million diesel drivers will clearly welcome this move by the big supermarkets, although it would be fair to say it has been slow in coming.’
The RAC’s Fuel Watch monitors the price of oil and its relation to forecourt prices. Most of the price of UK fuel, about 75%, goes to the Treasury in duty and VAT. The rest is production, refinery costs, distribution and the fuel retailers’ profit margins limiting how low the price of diesel and petrol will go.
But the motorists’ organisation said the forecourt price should have been cut earlier as the wholesale price of diesel has been 2p lower than the wholesale price of petrol since a couple of weeks before Christmas.
The price of petrol fell below £1 a litre in the weeks before Christmas.
