UKH

I happened to notice when cycling past my local Sainsbury's the other day that the price of diesel has dropped by about 5p a litre in the last few days/week.

I don't keep a special eye on fuel prices between different retailers as a rule, so I'm wondering whether this is a general thing across the board, or just that supermarket trying to compete with the others nearby.  If it is a more general thing, what's changed that's allowing prices to be reduced (albeit not by very much)?  Has the tax regime been eased somewhat and I missed it?

You wish! 

Not really.  The prices at that particular petrol station had definitely gone down - not by a huge amount, but it was a reversal of the previous sustained increases - and I was just wondering if there was a reason for this, and whether something might have slipped under my radar.

It’s inevitable that prices will drop with a recession on its way.

OK, I don't have an answer for your case, I just think the obvious tensions in Ukraine, the American driving season, air travel getting going again, constraints on refining capacity, and of course insatiable demand make it more likely that there is more pain to come.

I hope I'm wrong, £2/litre hurts!

Our local petrol station, an independent in a small village, currently has diesel at 183.9p/l.  I assume they've taken a hit on margin, but are still making some profit. It's definitely cheaper than recent weeks and significantly cheaper than the local big players

I’m using heating oil out the tank which is about half the price (mixed 50:50) with £1.94 from the local independent).

Are you running that in a car on the road?

I watch fuel prices like a man possessed. We use fuel cards at work and my current supplier is the first ever that hasn't tried to rip us off.

Most of the garages I pass came down by 4p last week. 

Brent Crude is dropping. Forecourt fuel prices might be starting to follow that drop. Hopefully.

No, it flies. Yes I get the legality issue but also object to VAT. “If tax isn’t fair it won’t be paid”. You can add in any other tax dodging excuses you can think of.

I don't understand what you're talking about but it doesn't sound very ethical. Or safe

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jul/08/petrol-prices-uk-watchdog-rai...

The UK’s competition watchdog will launch an in-depth investigation into the fuel sector after raising concerns over the margins made by refineries amid sky-high fuel prices on forecourts across the country.

In an urgent review commissioned by the government and published on Friday, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had “found cause for concern in the growing gap between the price of crude oil when it enters refineries, and the wholesale price when it leaves refineries as petrol or diesel”.

Heating oil and diesel are virtually the same thing, fill your oil tank at 97p a litre and syphon some out for the car. Expect most people on heating oil are doing this or will be in the near future. Nowhere near as flammable as petrol and who would ever know...all done in the privacy of your own home.

The issue is that of refinery capacity isn't it? A reasonable chunk of European refinery capacity lives in Russia and the output of that is currently unavailable to western markets. It's the same as 'recently' when there were fuel protests due to lack of refinery capacity in the UK.  Law of supply and demand.

I'm hoarding my heating oil for the winter, not sticking it in the car!

Just get more deliveries, at 50% off its a no brainer

The missing additives aren't hard to buy legally, either, if you care about the longevity of your engine.

I don't believe those cheerful excise people are very happy with this sort of thing, will be interesting to see if their roadside sampling starts to rise.  I'm not sure if all the ways used to identify red diesel and heating oil are well known (beyond obvious things like the dies).  It's a big risk to knowingly take - I won't even use a jerry can formerly used to move some heating oil for car fuel incase it introduces a traceable contaminant.

In December it was 50p/l. I have researched using heating oil as vehicle fuel and reports suggest a significant drop in performance. I have used veg oil with great success however nowadays the supermarkets tend to peg its pricing to diesel making the differential barely worth the bother. 

They held a mass participation event at the Penrith Saturday market a few years back.  Lots of participants didn't expect to be participating in the spot checks or the hefty fines meted out for using agricultural diesel.

I think the data/evidence in this case would be purchase of unusual amounts of heating oil during the summer months and I'm pretty sure they will be on the case

There are two sorts of heating oil - '28 second' and '32 second'. One is Kerosene, the other is diesel. I can't remember which is which, but google will tell you.

Drove from Wakefield to Flamborough yesterday and an independent petrol station in the middle of the Yorkshire Wolds was selling unleaded for 180p per litre... 6p cheaper than anything I have seen driving round West Yorkshire.... makes you wonder.

Good on ya! 

(Come on dislikes - gimme a big number!)