Diesel drivers could have paid as much as £250m more than necessary at the pumps in the last six weeks because retailers have not passed on wholesale price reductions.
The research group claims that for the past six weeks the price of diesel at refineries has been about 2p a litre lower than petrol, whereas on the forecourts diesel has been around 4p a litre higher in price over the same period.
This has led to a much larger the retail margin, covering forecourt costs and retailers’ profits, which by 8 July saw petrol holding a margin of 1.8p a litre and diesel 10.2p a litre.
Based on the current 10.7 million diesel cars in Great Britain, the RAC Foundation calculated that if they had the same margin diesel drivers could have been as much as £250m better off. Although this does not take account of the drivers, particularly hauliers, that use diesel fuel cards and pay less than the headline pump price.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: ‘Drivers of diesel cars could be forgiven for feeling short changed. While it can take a couple of weeks for shifts in the wholesale price of fuel to feed through to the forecourts, it is now six weeks since the cost of petrol at the refinery gate overtook that of diesel. If ever there was ever a case of sticky prices this looks like it.
‘Based on the wholesale prices we had been predicting good news for diesel drivers in the form of falling pump prices but they have strangely failed to materialise. It is not unreasonable for retailers to make a fair profit but once again we need to ask why pump prices need to lag so far behind wholesale prices.’
Diesel drivers have come in for a difficult ride of late. Following government tax breaks on the cars, it has since been discovered they produce higher pollution levels of toxic Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), meaning they could end up with extra charges down the line under Low Emissions Zones and other local schemes.
