UKH

My previous thread on this subject has been archived, I thought I'd drop this snippet in a new thread:

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/petrol-prices-edinbur...

“Weekly wholesale petrol prices – that’s the price retailers pay to buy the fuel – have fallen by a massive 17p a litre, from a weekly average of around 152p at the start of June to just 135p. Yet average pump prices have reduced by a paltry 4p. It’s time for every retailer to do the right thing and cut their prices to more reasonable levels.”

* Well at least it quietened down the "can't pay won't pay" freedom fighters.

There's a BP garage in Abergavenny charging £1.63/l for petrol today. There were queues right down the road when I visited last weekend!

There's a lot of businesses not passing on the 'savings' that's for sure.

They may not have seen the savings themselves yet; if they have just taken delivery of a tanker (35,000 litres) at the higher price, i'd be surprised if they could pass that saving on immediately and take a loss of (from the OP) 17p on each litre......

Also, retailers will have supply agreements with their suppliers whereby prices may only change every fortnight (we were on weekly when i worked in fuel retail - up to last february). There does appear to have been some "profit maximisation" by the refineries, given their margin had trebled in recent months.......it certainly isnt as simple for the retailers as oil proce goes down, pump price follows immediately.

Damn sure is when it goes up. Funny how they don't seem to run into these problems when it's an increase.

Same as when the fuel duty is applied, like on that huge tank in the refinery.

AAsAs a former fuel retailer, I can absolutely guarantee that it doesn't. How many litres do you think a forecourt would sell if it was suddenly 10p more expensive than anywhere else?

Just filled up for 170 a litre petrol in my local asda, that seems to have dropped by about 15p over the past fortnight or so, I don't think that's too far off following the numbers in your post. Hopefully other retailers will follow suit. Just gotta shop around!

169 in Beauly which is 11p less than the local Tesco here in Dingwall

Around Inverness there is currently about 20p per litre between cheapest and most expensive.

Our town has an 8p difference in the two filling stations and if you drive 8 miles it's £1.69 a litre 10p cheaper than we get so worth the drive if empty.

Local supermarket (Tesco) is taking an absolute slating on social media for being nearly 20p more than the cheapest locally. We won't be using them until they reduce their prices, hopefully nor will anyone else with any sense but being on the nc500 a fair few tourists are paying tesco 20p more a litre than they should be.

Independent (OK texaco/esso are not really independent) fuel stations are at least 7p a litre cheaper than the supermarket fuel stations around Swansea area. Funny thing is that these type of petrol stations were always the most expensive pre fuel price crisis..... 🤔

Can't work it out.

Passed an independent on the Hereford to Abergavenny road the other day and it was 1.60 a litre... 

Weird that all the stations round here must have got the tanker at exactly the same time then and hence still all have their prices considerably higher.

Would have thought some would have got the new tanker recently and hence been lower?

Where about is this? They could easily all be owned by the same group and so have the same pricing.

Tesco certainly price gouging at the moment. On my commute I pass a motorway service station that is cheaper than the Tesco beside the hospital.

Random question not entirely aimed at yourself but when does driving further to get petrol work in your favour as opposed to paying more locally and not incurring the extra cost. Just something I’ve been thinking about. 

Odd isn't it? Same here in Cumbria. Tesco always used to be the cheapest, for the last few weeks they're consistently the most expensive (excluding the place on the A66 at Cockermouth).

I'll try to make sure I'm filling the tank from empty if I'm driving any extra distance to get cheaper fuel. I save about 5 quid a tank (50l at 10p cheaper a litre) and the extra milage is nowhere near that cost. Plus I'll usually try to fill on the way to somewhere I'm going anyways so it's very rare I'd do the 16 mile round trip just to fill up. 

If it's just few pence different I don't care care but 9-10p or more and I'll head for the cheaper garage and work it into a normal trip.  

Assuming constant mpg, you will save money if the percentage saving on fuel per litre is greater than the percentage extra driving you do.

So, in my case, if I drive to Asda, about a 20 mile round trip to fill my tank which has a range of about 600miles, I need about a 3% saving, so around 5p per litre at today's prices. If I divert to Asda on the way to the wall, its only about 3 extra miles, so about 0.5% and its worth it for 1p cheaper per litre.

I have just paid £1.60 per litre of petrol at a Texaco garage near me in Walkden

The queues however have been humongous.

Yes thankfully diesel on the way down here in Glasgow from £1.99 to £1.85.

A welcome change and a lifeline for some. In time it will drop more, but I can't see it returning to what it was. Just like the heating bills. Winter is looking brutal.

Similar scenes in North Wales with Texaco in Bangor at 167p and my local Shell in Betws y Coed at 188p. Tesco in Bangor also very expensive at ~180p. 
 

£10 saving on filling my 50 litre tank is pretty significant!

I think an allowance for the value of driver's time should be considered as well, it's easy (I'm often guilty of this) to spend a lot of valuable time to save a few £.

The office where I worked I few years ago was next door to a Sainsbury's petrol station.  I used to fill up there quite regularly - after checking on the petrolprices app that there wasn't anyone significantly cheaper nearby.  One week I noticed that the Asda 'super' store that I drove past on my journey to and from the office was 0.2p per litre cheaper*.  However, their (self-service) petrol station was at the back of their site - beyond the store itself and the car park.  With the help of Google Maps I worked out that, even filling up with nothing but fumes left in the tank, the drive to the back of their site and back would cost me more in fuel than I would save on filling the tank up.

* This seems to be a favourite wheeze of Asda's: they price their fuel at xxx.7p per litre rather xxx.9p per litre like everyone else does.  But then they put their petrol station at the very back of a large site, either being completely unaware that this makes the saving questionable at best, or else just assuming most customers are too stupid to do the math.

In Australia (or Adelaide at least) the local radio stations broadcast the cheapest fuel prices locations on a daily basis - must help to keep the price down.

That must be a sweeping generalisation.

I used to get mine from here when I lived in Edinburgh. https://goo.gl/maps/juJShqFpmPAYRUu46 or this one if down at the wall https://goo.gl/maps/oV11rMcrfQJghouL9 Can visit both without entering the carpark.

Back on topic, the price wars heating up here with some big decreases.

I live near this garage, and the traffic has been a total nightmare. The low prices went into the local press which has made it worse.

The garage is an indy, and apparently they are taking in two tankers a day to keep up with demand.

Although it won't help your traffic issue, the trick surely is to find the second cheapest garage in an area (that's not too out of the way).

Yes, on reflection it does come across that way*.  What I meant was that in the case of the site I was referring to they did that.  That said, the 0.2p cheaper than the competition trick does seem to apply to all the Asda petrol stations in this area, but is no use to me as the local Tesco (with fuel pumps at the front of the site) is at least a mile closer than any of the local Asdas - and my usual route these days takes me right past it.

It would be nice if we had some cheap independent petrol stations round here to give some competition to the supermarkets and the oil companies.  There is one BP station closer in to town which manages to match the supermarkets, but the rest of the Shell, BP, Esso, Gulf and even Jet stations are still floating around last month's price levels.  No 160p per litre round here...

* Probably with a bit of an unintended edge arising from my dislike of Asda.

Is that the one on the Hereford road, just before the turn off for Brecon ?