Petrol prices: Diesel and unleaded rise 12p a litre in just five months

Fuel prices accelerated in March for a fifth consecutive month, latest data shows. 

The average price of petrol rose 2.7p-a-litre last month, pushing unleaded to an average of 126.28p. 

Diesel prices have grown more steadily at 2.4p per litre in March, reaching 129.07p-a-litre on average.

Simon Williams, the RAC’s spokesman on all things fuel related, said recent pump hikes ‘seem unrelenting’ and have frustratingly come at a time when drivers are ‘now starting to use their vehicles more with the easing of the national lockdown’.

The analysis comes as official figures show the huge dent the coronavirus pandemic on fuel demand, with petrol and diesel consumption falling by 8.7billion litres in 2020 – the equivalent of no vehicles visiting a filling station for almost 10 weeks. 

For motorists who have barely used their cars in 2021 due to the existing Covid lockdown, filling up for the first time in months will likely be far more expensive than they last remember. 

At the beginning of November, average petrol prices were around 114p-a-litre.

The recent surge has seen unleaded add around an additional 12.2p per litre in the subsequent five months.

A litre of diesel is around 11.4p more expensive today than it was on 1 November, the analysis also shows.

The RAC says the continued rise at the pumps has brought fuel prices back up to the same level they were in February 2020, before the pandemic struck the UK and ahead of the oil market crashing.

The combination of both factors in 2020 saw the first UK retailer selling petrol for less than £1-a-litre on 28 March – a Murco station in Birmingham – with supermarkets following suit within weeks. 

It was the first time unleaded was being sold for less than £1 per litre since early 2016. 

The March rise means it now costs £6.68 more to fill a 55-litre petrol car than it did in November (£69.45 in total), and £6.29 more to fill an equivalent-sized diesel car (£70.99). 

While the oil price was $63.67 at the end of March – having recovered in recent months after hitting a historic low of just $13.21 last April – the ongoing impact of the pandemic on demand, particularly with global travel well down on normal, is helping to prevent it from going much higher for the time being.

The RAC says drivers looking for the best value at the pumps should continue to head to supermarkets, with a litre of unleaded currently costing 121.9p on average, with diesel at 124.86p. 

Asda leads the way with petrol at just 120.99p-a-litre, and diesel at 123.99p – around 6p cheaper than the national average. 

That said, the RAC points out that all the major retailers raised their prices in March in line with the rest of the industry, to the tune of an average of 2.61p for petrol and 2.59p for diesel.

With this in mind, the motoring organisation says drivers should be in line for a pump price cut in the coming weeks if retailers reflect wholesale prices on their forecourts.

However, there are concerns that after a year of reduced fuel demand, retailers will be looking to cash in as traffic volumes increase. 

Commenting on the March fuel price increase, Williams said: ‘Pump price rises seem a little unrelenting at the moment with March being the fifth successive month where prices went up. 

‘This is very frustrating for drivers who are now starting to use their vehicles more with the easing of the national lockdown. 

‘They’re unfortunately suffering the effects of the rise in wholesale fuel prices that took place in February which led retailers to increase their forecourt prices almost daily throughout last month.

‘The situation isn’t as grim as it could be though as the combination of a relatively strong pound and an oil price that is pegged back by lower global demand as a result of the pandemic mean wholesale prices are still lower than they otherwise would be.’

Having crunched the numbers, Williams says diesel is looking ‘particularly overpriced at the moment’, with the wholesale price of the fuel currently less than the petrol equivalent. 

Yet he warned that motorists shouldn’t get too ahead of themselves thinking a price cut is looming, as this ‘rarely translates into lower prices as retailers tend to use the saving to subsidise the price of petrol’.

He added: ‘The coming weeks and months are critical when it comes to working out where prices might be heading during the rest of 2021. 

‘For as long as global Covid travel restrictions remain, it’s hard to see oil prices rocketing – and that should protect wholesale, and in turn, pump prices from rising too quickly. 

‘However, what the major oil producing nations decide to do in terms of oil output is also important. Any further reductions in supply could start to push the barrel price up above the $70 mark again – spelling yet more pump price rises here in the UK.’