Drivers in the UK have been warned to fill up their tanks ‘sooner rather than later’ after a 10-week price drop comes to an end.
Motorists were urged to head to forecourts after the price of a petrol litre fell last week, though it has since stabilised.
The average price of a litre of petrol at UK service stations dropped from 150.1p on April 24 to 144.5p at the end of last week, the AA said.
Diesel prices saw a similar trend, with the average price falling from 158.3p on April 24 to 149.6p.
Motoring groups previously hoped petrol prices would fall below the pre-Covid record high of 142.5p per litre on April 12, 2012 for just the second time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
But the AA said this will not happen in the short term because of the rebound in the price of a barrel of oil in the US.
That cost has increased from $80 USD in early June to more than $85 USD over the past fortnight.
Luke Bosdet, the AA’s fuel price spokesperson, said: ‘The question is whether, after a significant fall in the UK’s average petrol price in June, the price will repeat last year’s sharp rise going further into the summer.
‘It would be a blow for the impending summer getaway if the cost of road travel took off again.
‘For now, filling up sooner rather than later will take advantage of current lower prices.’
Revealed: The supermarket where drivers pay the most for petrol
Asda is the most expensive supermarket in the UK to buy petrol from, according to analysis released in January.
The RAC said that for many years Asda ‘prided itself on selling the cheapest fuel’, often being the first supermarket to cut pump prices.
But after the supermarket chain was taken over by the billionaire Issa brothers and private equity firm TDR Capital in 2021, prices started to creep up.
A study by the RAC found that by the end of May, a liter of petrol at Asda now costs an average of 2.1p more than at rival supermarkets Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
My colleague Tom Sanders’ full report is here.
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Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
