PetrolPrices.com has a unique position in the petrol market, bridging the gap between you, our members, and the industry itself. While we never ask for change, we do believe in making sure that you are kept up to date with what’s happening in the industry.
In this article, we’ve covered everything that’s happened this year and looked forward to next year and what you can expect. We spoke to our Data Analyst, Ashley Beach to get his view on the past year, and then our content team researched into what the industry thinks about what will happen next year.
The past year
Ashley Beach, Data Analyst at PetrolPrices.com, said “As 2018 comes to an end it’s time to recap on the year of UK fuel prices. With December 2017 being the most expensive month of 2017, the UK was hoping for a decrease in fuel prices for the year ahead.
Unfortunately, prices continuously increased through January with a 1.1p per litre increase across all fuels by the end of the month, except for premium diesel that saw a rise of 1.6ppl. However, come February and supermarkets started the first price war of the year resulting in a 2ppl average price decrease across all fuels.
The hope for lower fuel prices ended when the constant prices through March started to increase through April. May was a crushing month for drivers when average fuel prices saw a rise of 6ppl, the most significant increase over a month in 18 years. The prices then dipped by the end of June, due to another supermarket price war and rumours that OPEC were going to lift restrictions on production.
Sadly, the price drop was not as extreme as expected and through the next few months prices rose above the previous high induced by the increases in May. Late October to early November saw average prices of diesel at their highest of the year, whereas for unleaded this was mid-October. Prices maxed at 131.7ppl, 137.1ppl, 144.6ppl and 150.5ppl for unleaded, diesel, super unleaded and premium diesel respectively.
Until mid-November, the average price of diesel stayed close to its maximum price of the year, while the average price of unleaded had decreased by 3.2ppl by mid-November, inducing a vast difference of 8ppl between the two. Through December this difference continued to increase to 9.8ppl. We hadn’t seen a difference between the average prices like this since January and February 2015.
The forecast for drivers in early 2019 looks hopeful from the continuous price decrease of all fuels since mid-November. Especially for unleaded drivers, since the rate it’s falling seems to be greater than diesel. Also, the average price of super unleaded has dropped to approximately a penny above regular diesel.”
Onto next year
Oil price is one of the main factors that affect the price of petrol and diesel, so it is only natural to mention some factors that will affect the market this year heading into next year.
Iran is the top concern for the industry, as the American waivers on the countries buying oil from Iran end in May 2019. In November this year, the first round of deadlines approached but America got worried and issued a new set of waivers in hopes to bring down the price of crude oil, after going on about the seriousness of reducing Iran’s oil output to zero. With there now being a supply surplus in America, it is likely that the Trump administration will be able to take a harder stance come May.
Libya is also a regular concern, having been a source of instability in the oil industry for years, they recently lost 400,000 barrels per day (bp/d) output due to militia action in Iran. With high goals to increase production in 2019, Libya could surprise the market either way with a high increase or decrease.
The USA proved to be a dark horse this year, with unprecedented growth from their shale production and surpassed all 2018 estimates, some by up to 1 million bp/d. However, the recent downturn in prices, financial stress and pipeline issues could eventually slow growth. A new pipeline in the second half of 2019 could help to meet targets for non-Opec oil.
OPEC+, the corporation of all the oil-producing countries, has also got a cut set in place to help reduce the current surplus. It is yet unknown whether this will happen by the mid-year meeting in Vienna, which may force OPEC to increase the cut until further on the year.
The possibility of economic downturn could also be an issue, slowing growth in China, contracting GDP in Europe, currency crises in emerging markets and financial volatility across the world. Uncertainty around Brexit, especially in European markets could also contribute as March hits.
With all of this said, the team at PetrolPrices wishes you a Happy New Year! We’ll continue to update you on what happens throughout the year. What do you think will happen in 2019 for petrol prices?
Why is diesel so much more expensive than petrol, are the wholesale prices still the same?
Is it government influence to dissuade people from buying diesel cars?
The insane campaign against diesels is damaging the motor industry, when with modern emission controls they are no more polluting than petrol.
It’s due to the fact that heating oil comes from the same part of crude oil as diesel does. This resulted in the price of diesel to stay high as the demand for heating oil kept the prices higher as temperatures started dropping.
When in BERLIN recently I noted Diesel was at least 10 cents cheaper than Petrol everywhere Who has got something WRONG ??
It’s the same everywhere in Europe – diesel is much cheaper than petrol. My guess is it’s the huge amount of duty/vat that the government puts on the basic price of diesel!
Has the fuel duty changed for diesel?
I asked about this recently and the reply I got was that it was down to the higher temperature required to produce diesel.
That doesn’t explain it for me.
Diesel was always cheaper than petrol until everyone started to buy diesel cars 🙂
Unfortunately I am old enough to remeber the 70’s when diesel was about 2/3rds the cost of petrol.
Explain that.
Mr Brown when Chancellor encouraged us all to buy diesel cars as they were cleaner than petrol cars. Then during the next year he increased the duty to the same level as that for Petrol.
politicians are not to be believed. I don’t trust them with anything , the only way to get cheaper fuel it the French way. Take to the street and riot , remember Toxteth
I’m old enough to remember Maggie Thatcher pledging that diesel will always be at least 10p per gallon cheaper than petrol.
The problem is we no longer have MAGGIE,a lady who got things sorted,we now have a bunch of muppets,who are frightened of their own shadow and are clueless on everything.
Have you ever heard of the term ‘Rip of Britain’
Absolutely right Graham.
I have a diesel VW with catalytic convertor and diesel particulate filter. The emissions are almost negligible – looking at the M.O.T. test emission results. I am regularly behind buses that fire out huge black clouds of exhaust as if they were military tanks laying out smoke screens. Their emissions must be equivalent to a thousand of my car.
As I said before if you cannot afford FUEL there are other ways of getting from A to B including a way called WALKING I know some are unable to walk and must drive but many will not try the alternatives of even consider using them
It would take me 7 hours to walk to work and an hour to walk to the nearest supermarket, or general shops which I’d need to do 3 or 4 times to carry stuff. I can’t trust supermarkets to give me the newest or best looking fresh produce using home delivery. My local village shop is expensive and has a very limited range of food. The Saturday bus service is discontinued and I can’t afford to take taxis everywhere. The car is my only option
If you hadn’t chosen to live so far out you wouldn’t have this problem.
Do you have a 25 mile commute?
Triffid and Bob, you both know perfectly well what bishbut meant by walking instead of using a car, outside my local school is a perfect example of lazy parents driving less that a couple of miles to drop their kiddywinks at the school gate causing the inevitable chaos. He does no expect people to walk long distances…..
Such a stupid comment….Don’t you think we walk and ride our bikes when we can? With the price of fuel, using the are only when we need too is what most do now. It costs me £80 to fill up and a short drive gives me 18mpg…A medium to long drive I can get 62mpg… So popping out for a 1-mile shop drive is simply not considered.
May I suggest you grow up before making such pathetic comments respectfully.
I am 76 yo and severely disabled! your comments please.
Not if you are disabled you can’t
You are all missing the point …. this is about tax. The fuel duties are just about the perfect tax and have incredible benefit to the government and things it has to pay for NHS, benefits etc….. 80% plus tax……and unless you steal it near 100% collection…… The more you drive the more money you are giving to support the NHS and the disadvantaged.
Think about this…….. if we all started walking everywhere…… where would the government get the money to pay for all of these things? It would probably have to start taxing Walking.
The real reason why diesels are hated by HMRC is that they slash their revenues and they then distort excuses to paint them in a bad light…. just think about this?
I got rid of my old Rover 75 estate which had a 1.8 petrol engine in it…….. it did upper 30s MPG.
I bought a new Honda Civic estate with a hyper efficient diesel engine in it … returning 60 plus MPG.
I still do the same sort of mileage so am no consuming 50% less fuel and about 50% less tax.
If this was repeated across the country the Government would have a massive funding problem….. which they would have to fill with other forms of tax….
But the kicker is that the road tax I paid has gone down from over £200 per year to £20……. so they are subsiding me to do this.
Mark words ….. tax on electric vehicles will soar when it reaches a critical point
Tax on electric cars will inevitabley go up with increased ownership but I am sure gas guzzlers will also get penalised. Buy a gas guzzler while you can and enjoy it – before petrol and diesel cars are banned completely
A few years ago I travelled around more than 9,000 miles all overland. My car was one that ran on diesel & I must say that in most of Europe the price of fuel was HALF of that in the UK & it was also obvious that where ever we were the price of diesel was nearly always half the price of diesel.
As to the reason for such high fuel prices here in the UK, that is because of the sky high fuel tax we are charged. In fact I have it from good authority that this is an unbelievable 80% of the price of fuel we pay. That’s not forgetting the VAT that has to be paid also. I’ve no idea or any notion what the many millions or rather billions that all these taxes amount to annually are spent on. NHS…no, Education…no, Law & Order…no, Hospitals…no, Housing…no, Other important underfunded schemes…no, or perhaps on Roads…definitely No. There seem to be pot holes just about every where…and that includes on some of the motorways we have driven on.
There is absolutely no doubt that the fuel wholesalers are ripping off the U.K. motorist big time. The price of crude continues to hover around $50-55 per barrel, and yet we are paying more for fuel now, than back in 2010 when it was selling for $130. Given that fuel duty hasn’t risen during the tenure of the Conservative Government, and that oil companies profits are at an all time high, it’s not hard to see who are the ones ripping us off. Let’s face it, in reality they could raise the the price petrol and diesel to £2 a litre and we’d still buy it, because we don’t have any option.
One of the main considerations is the value of the pound against the dollar. The pound has plummeted in value, due to the Brexit fiasco, therefore the relative price of crude oil has risen. Plus, of course, the VAT is added after the basic cost plus fuel tax so any incidental increase in cost is amplified by 20%.
agree, but does not account for why diesel is much higher in price relative to petrol when it is effectively a byproduct. Producers are profiting big time on oil. They are killing the golden goose. When we all switch to electric the producers will have been instrumental in making the users switch. Then when we are all driving an electric car the government will find a way to charge us and tax us for it. The only way to beat the tax that is just around the corner is to get solar on your roof… Add wind power and we have a system that reduces your electric bill. I drive a diesel and get great mileage from it. My VW is solid no issues and I love it, but my next car will be all-electric as the economics of filling up is a losing game for me.
When most of the UK’s oil refineries were built 50 years ago, most cars used petrol and the refineries were designed to produce much more petrol than diesel. These days, with a much higher proportion of cars using diesel there is a lack of refining capacity to make diesel in the UK so a lot of diesel has to be imported. The profit margins from refining fuel are very small therefore no one wants to invest tens of millions to reconfigure the refineries.
This lack of refining capacity, and the need to import refined diesel, makes diesel relatively more expensive than petrol in the UK.
ACTUALLY THE WHOLE THING IS A FIASCO SINCE FUEL IS A BY-PRODUCT OF THE PETRO-CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. IF THERE WERE NO USE FOR IT THE INDUSTRY WOULD HAVE TO BURN IT TO GET RID OF IT!
It actually just risen a massive 4% over the last 24hrs to a whopping $47 a barrel – I know, why the he*l are we paying so much for fuel. Its not all tax – supermarkets are driving the prices up in my opinion.
If I could walk I would walk or run everywhere locally but as I’m a paraplegic that is out of the question, I do drive and I do prefer a diesel engined vehicle but won’t get one because of the price of the diesel, I don’t understand why fuel prices are so high as they are a waste product of other materials manufactured as well as from other sources. It’s pure greed by manufacturers and governments.
Where do you get this idea that petrol and diesel are waste products since it’s just plain rubbish. Other fractions are produced from the crude oil distillation process but non are waste.
I think he meant byproduct and not wast. The gas that is burned off on the rigs is a waste product. If only they could store it. Wait they can,,,,so why are they just burning it off and adding to the co2?
A graph would be nice!
At the end of 2018 the price of oil is currently at the lowest price it has been for many years as shown on the stock markets. At the pumps this crash in oil prices has not been reflected, as always the British motorist is still being over charged and over taxed. If the fuel or road tax were ring fenced we would have the best road network in the world so why are we condemned to being pot hole dodging drivers.
Well said, Mr J H Hunt. It doesn’t matter what the conditions, there will always be an excuse to rip of the motorist. Too much or too little production, put the price up. Too much or too little demand, put the price up.
My car sits idle for maybe 5 or 6 days a week because most of the times I do go out, they are short runs, so I wait until I have several jobs to do, and do them all on the one outing.
It about time the fuel companies got rid of the .9p and either round it up or down to the whole pence.
Why does this .9p even exist and were did it even come from.
eg: If I purchase 5 litres of fuel NO garage can give you .5p change. If you think how many times a day that this happens in 1 fuel station making .1p on every litre they sell.
The tory goverment want to try and show the rest of the world that britain can be the cleanest more enviromently changed country ever well it aint guna happen unless the rest of say china U.S. india change there ways nar it aint going to happen at all just goverment policy to scare people into buying electric cars i can imagine the police chasing someone in an electric car then it runs out of electric p.c. plod says to sargent plod have you got 50p for the meter
Given the huge numbers of cars on the road and all the pollution I would raise the price per litre by at least 25p.
I have been receiving these emails for ~ 10? years, lately I can’t find my cheapest local supplier! When I select by area, I am asked to register, so I enter my acct name & password & I’m told this acct is already in use! Yes by me, so why doesn’t it let me in? What happened to the old system where you opened the mail & saw the cheapest garages in your area? After all this why we signed up! If you can’t help here I’ll reluctantly have to opt out, I don’t have hours to browse the site looking for the cheapest. I’d rather pay.more than waste my time! Have I.missed something? I’ve read the mail, but see no indication of where this info is hidden?
Simple. Diesel gives us more miles per gallon. Therefore less fuel purchased . Therefore less tax revenue. The sums prove themselves.
Thank you for a straightforward approach and comment.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
and
Best Wishes for 2019 to Entire Team
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