After weeks of sharply climbing prices, the average cost of diesel has fallen below the £2 a litre threshold.
The fuel reached an all-time price high of 199.33p towards the end of September before going on to surpass the £2 landmark in the first week of this month.
Some analysts predicted diesel could drop by 6ppl following US president Donald Trump backing away from the diesel export ban he had been mulling over, while in the same week BP announced it would rejig its refineries to “max” diesel production.
The result has indeed been falling prices, if not to that extent: a retail litre of diesel now stands at 199.9p according to the RAC, which holds unleaded is selling at 174.9p.
And further reductions could be on the cards, with wholesale diesel dropping by 3.93p per litre between October 2 and 8, compared to the same period seven days prior, according to MyAutomate.
Retailers may, instead, however, be minded to recoup lost diesel margins, which dropped by around 20% as operators did their best to absorb price shocks – though the RAC contends that forecourts have been upping their unleaded margins to offset revenue lost from the black pump.
Simon Williams, head of policy for the breakdown firm comments:
“The average price of petrol should also reduce by as much as 5p a litre as its price on the country’s forecourts has been over what we’d expect based on its cost to retailers.
“This may well have been done in an effort to avoid retailers charging £2 and over for diesel but it’s also important to be fair to those driving petrol vehicles.”
