Drivers delight as price of petrol drops for third month in a row

The price of petrol fell by 1.5p a litre in October making for three consecutive months of cuts, data from RAC Fuel Watch shows.

The average price of a litre of unleaded dropped (1.57p) to 126.42p at the end of the month from 127.99p at the start. Diesel also came down a similar amount (1.59p), taking a litre to 130.49p from 132.08p – a change from September when it increased very slightly.

A litre of petrol is now nearly 3p (2.73p) a litre cheaper than it was at the beginning of August (129.15p), whereas diesel is only 1.55p cheaper (132.04 on 1 August).

This means the cost of filling a 55-litre family car with petrol has fallen back under £70 to £69.53 for the first time since March – a saving of not quite a pound (86p) on last month. An equivalent diesel fill-up is now £71.77, down 87p from £72.64.

At the end of October, Asda was selling the cheapest supermarket unleaded at 121.64p a litre, 1.44p ahead of its nearest rival Tesco (123.08p). It also had the lowest priced diesel at 125.14p, 1.54p below Tesco (126.68p). The average price of supermarket petrol was 123.01p – down 1.05p; diesel 126.55p – down 1.48p.

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: “It’s clearly good news for drivers that pump prices reduced in October, but it’s disappointing they haven’t fallen further given the conditions were so favourable with the price of oil averaging under $60 a barrel and the pound strengthening to $1.29.

“In the middle of the month we called for a significant cut as we saw petrol was up to 7p a litre too expensive. The supermarkets responded with a round of price cuts, but most only decided to knock 2p a litre off unleaded. While this was positive we feel they could have gone quite a bit further. This is borne out by the average price only dropping just over a penny since then.

“As things stand both petrol and diesel are still 2p too expensive and should really be reduced. Sadly, we suspect this is extremely unlikely as the wholesale market is now beginning to go the other way which will start to eat in to the accumulated saving that should have been passed on to drivers before.”

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