The price of petrol fell to its lowest for more than two years in December, according to the latest data from the RAC.
Unleaded had an average price of 142.57p per litre last month – the cheapest it has been since October 2021. Despite this good news, the motoring organisation believes that consumers are still being short-changed at the pumps.
“While the biggest retailers haven’t announced any headline-grabbing big cuts, prices are falling steadily every day which is encouraging,” said Simon Williams, RAC fuel spokesman. “If wholesale prices are reflected more fairly at the pumps, we should see the average price of petrol drop below 140p in the next week.
“While diesel isn’t at a similar low point – as it averaged 6p less than its current 150.29p in August – it’s still down from last Christmas’ dizzying prices of around 175p a litre.”
RAC conducted research in November that showed how retailers were making an average margin of 17p per litre for petrol and 13p on diesel, when the long term margin averages were 7p and 8p respectively. The RAC feels that with the wholesale cost of fuel going down, prices at the pumps could still be lower. The 5p per litre duty cut announced in March 2022 is arguably not being passed down to drivers.
Williams said: “Wholesale fuel costs have been falling for months, so they [consumers] should be paying around 137p for petrol. Diesel is also overpriced. This is extremely worrying as the biggest retailers don’t seem to have heeded the warnings levelled at them by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho in the autumn, when she said she wouldn’t hesitate to call out those retailers that rip off the public.”
