Fuel retailers have been accused of holding on to inflated diesel prices, despite the wholesale costs of the fuel sitting lower than petrol for the entirety of April.
“Diesel drivers across the UK mainland continue to lose out badly at the pumps,” RAC spokesman Simon Williams said.
“They’re paying 13p a litre more for the fuel than petrol, despite diesel being cheaper for retailers to buy on the wholesale market for all of April.”
RAC estimated that retailers are now making a 22p margin per litre of diesel on average, with lower prices in Northern Ireland dragging this down, compared to 8p for petrol and a long-term norm of 7p for each fuel respectively.
“Retailers are making three times what they have in the past for diesel. This is hard for them to justify and equally hard for diesel drivers to swallow,” Williams added.
Overall, a litre of diesel was 159.43p at the end of April, compared to a wholesale price of 104.9p. Petrol was 146.5p in forecourts meanwhile, with wholesale costs at 111.2p per litre.
Tesco PLC (LSE:TSCO) was the UK’s largest retailer of fuel in 2022, followed by Shell PLC (LSE:SHEL, NYSE:SHEL), BP PLC (LSE:BP.), Esso and J Sainsbury PLC (LSE:SBRY), according to Statista.
Tesco, which has been accused of profiteering off high inflation, penned a 7.2% rise in revenue including fuel to £65.8bn during 2022.
RAC has repeatedly been vocal about the need to lower petrol and diesel prices, this time calling on the government to force the UK’s largest retailers to “charge fairer prices in relation to wholesale market movements”.
In late April, the motor services company estimated the UK’s 12mln diesel drivers had been overcharged by around £1.3bn for fuel since the start of the year.