The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero says that a glitch stopping firms accessing pricing data from Fuel Finder has now been fixed.
Earlier today, Forecourt Trader reported that for around 12 hours sites trying to ‘plug into’ Fuel Finder before sharing prices with motorists had not been able to do so.
The outage coincided with a significant spike in wholesale fuel prices, and increased consumer demand for up-to-date information following the conflict in Iran.
A DESNZ spokesperson said: “Following a technical issue, the Fuel Finder service is now back online and operating normally.”
The department added it is working “closely” with VE3 Global, the company that won the contract to build and run Fuel Finder, in order to “iron out any issues with this new service quickly”.
Rather than the government publishing Fuel Finder data itself via the Gov website, it commissioned VE3 to build a bespoke platform. Petrol stations must enter their prices into this platform, which third-party companies ‘plug into’ before sharing the prices they obtain with drivers via websites and apps.
The side of the system that third-party firms access via API (Application Programming Interface) ran into trouble this morning.
This meant that the significant price changes being implemented by petrol stations up and down the country in light of the Iranian conflict were not reflected in the prices being shown to consumers by companies publishing Fuel Finder data.
Forecourt Trader has approached VE3 Global for comment.
This article was updated following DESNZ communicating the error had been fixed.
