The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) has criticised the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after the regulator said fuel margins “remain stuck at historic highs”.
The CMA is “concerned about the intensity of retail competition” after finding that while non-supermarket fuel margins fell from 10.6% in September last year to 9.1% in November, they subsequently rose to 9.8% at the end of the quarter. Similarly, margins on supermarket fuel are said to have stood at 8.6% in September before dropping to 8.2% in November, only to rise to 9.8% in December 2024.
The CMA says such margins suggest “overall competition in the road fuel market remains weak”, but Gordon Balmer, executive director at the PRA, calls the report “disappointing”, saying it ”does not properly account for the increased fixed costs that petrol retailers must contend with”.
Balmer adds that rising business rates, and energy and staff costs, are all putting pressure on filling-station operators, and that the CMA’s report ”does not give the full picture of the retail fuel market”.
He explains: “Many of these increased costs have come from government policy. It is not reasonable to massively increase the costs associated with running a forecourt and then ignore them in an analysis of the sector.”
The regulator’s quarterly report into the market found that fuel margins emphasise “the importance of implementing” its recommended Fuel Finder scheme “as soon as possible”, though it added that this is unlikely to happen before the end of the year.
Across the industry, the average cost of a litre of unleaded last quarter was 139.6 pence, while diesel was 146.8p. The CMA said a new statutory monitoring function was required “to hold the industry to account”.
