AUTHOR Robert Gillespie

Fuel Price Wars

It is always a pertinent situation and one that we should all be paying attention to as the price of fuel at the pumps affects us all in many different ways. From the cost to fill up our cars, to the cost to get our food and clothing to the supermarkets to the cost of our mail getting delivered, fuel affects many different walks of life so it is always worthwhile to keep your ear to the ground when it comes to the price changes of fuel.

Four of the leading supermarkets in the UK announced a cut in their petrol prices ahead of the bank holiday weekend. Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Tesco have all made announcements informing us that they are dropping the cost per litre for their fuel.

Morrisons kicked off the price drop by reducing their fuel costs by up to 2p a litre for petrol and 1p per litre of diesel. Sainsbury’s were close followers announcing that from 3^rd May they would reduce their petrol and diesel by 2p per litre.

Following these announcements both Tesco and Asda both bucked the trend and announced fuel reductions of their own with Asda announcing that anyone filling up at one of their 217 forecourts would not pay more than 129.7p per litre for petrol and 134.7p per litre of diesel.

Tesco declared that it would also be matching Sainsbury’s offer and reducing both petrol and diesel prices by 2p per litre.

AA public affairs head Paul Watters said: “Today’s supermarket price war comes on the back of yesterday’s 40-dollars-a-tonne fall in petrol wholesale prices across Europe – equivalent, with VAT, to a 2.5p-a-litre fall at the pump. However, just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, two days of commodity price falls doesn’t signal the end of drivers’ pump misery.

“If this trend continues, that would be a good start to the summer season but no-one should under-estimate the market’s ability to send prices shooting up again, often just on pure speculation.”

All we can all do is hope that the prices continue to drop. It seems to work out that the cheaper the fuel, the cheaper the way of life. So let’s hope that these competitions between the supermarkets keep driving these costs down.

Having worked in the car rental industry for over 15 years, he really knows his stuff. Rob heads up our marketing department and as a keen traveller, always has a new location to talk about. Particularly if there is a golf course nearby.

Robert Gillespie

Traveller