Weekly fuel sales have surged as Covid-19 restrictions have been eased across GB and the highest daily total has been recorded since September.
The latest weekly figures from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) show that for the week ending April 18, sales were 89% of their pre-lockdown level, up 12.5% on the previous week.
Average sales on Friday April 17 reached 17,901 litres, exceeding the average daily road fuel sales for the first time since 25th September 2020.
Compared to the week prior average sales were 12.9% higher in England, 15.3% higher in Wales and 6.9% higher in Scotland.
Across GB average daily sales of diesel were 9,460 litres, reaching 91% of pre-pandemic levels and average daily sales of petrol were 6,350 litres, which was 88% of pre-pandemic levels.
In the eight weeks prior to the lockdown on March 23 2020, average daily sales were 17,690 litres per filling station, with a peak of 20,983 on Friday February 28. After the lockdown they fell rapidly bottoming out at 2,522 litres on Sunday April 12.
The figures from BEIS are based on end of the day snapshots of petrol and diesel sales and stock levels from a sample of around 4,500 filling stations across Great Britain.
However, the fuel volumes are collected primarily from oil companies, supermarkets and large independent filling stations, and this results in higher daily average figures than if all independent volumes were included.
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