Asda has cut 4ppl from the price of diesel and 2ppl from unleaded petrol on the day the RAC accused supermarkets of failing to pass on savings from lower wholesale prices.

Effective from today, Wednesday 5 February, Asda’s price cap will be 118.7ppl on unleaded petrol and 120.7ppl on diesel.

The new reductions mean Asda has cut 7ppl from the cost of diesel and 5ppl from petrol in the past week.

Asda senior fuel buyer Dave Tyrer said: “We’re pleased to be passing on these wholesale cost prices to customers for the second time in two weeks as the price of oil continues to fall.

“We will continue to put the savings straight back into drivers’ pockets without any vouchering requirements meaning all our customers, regardless of their budget, will benefit from a price cut at the pumps.”

A short time later Sainsbury’s announced cuts of the same level effective from Friday.

Before the latest cuts were announced the RAC released its RAC Fuel Watch data for January and reported that despite the wholesale cost of petrol and diesel falling in January, the average prices charged at the pumps of the UK’s four biggest supermarkets increased every day until a cut was finally announced at the end of the month.

The wholesale price of unleaded petrol fell by more than 4ppl (4.23ppl), and diesel was down 7.5ppl across the month.

According to the RAC, this should have led to a price reductions at the pumps during January, but instead the price of both fuels increased for the second consecutive month.

The average UK price of petrol at the end of the month was 127.60ppl – up 0.92ppl from the beginning of January (126.68ppl). Diesel increased by 0.96ppl to 132.04ppl from 131.08ppl. At the supermarkets unleaded petrol averaged 123.69ppl (up 1.51ppl) and diesel was 128.14ppl (up 1.30ppl).

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: “Drivers should be relieved the supermarkets are cutting fuel prices after weeks of falling wholesale costs. It’s just a shame it’s taken so long to see cuts of this scale as RAC Fuel Watch data shows they should have already happened. Drivers badly need retailers to move away from headline-grabbing cuts to passing on reductions daily in the same way they do with price increases.

“The cost retailers have been paying to buy in petrol and diesel, and the price they charge at the pumps, have been severely out of kilter for weeks. In fact, we had a bizarre and desperately unfair situation where the supermarkets were putting up prices when wholesale costs were falling, meaning drivers were paying far more to fill up than they should have been.”