Supermarkets cut petrol prices as oil tumbles
SUPERMARKETS have cut the price of petrol from near-record levels after the cost of oil tumbled in the face of continuing fears over Eurozone debt, the US downgrade and plunging stock markets.
Asda was the first of the big retailers to announce yesterday that it would cut the price of unleaded petrol and diesel by up to two pence per litre across its 188 filling stations nationwide.
Morrisons and Tesco followed suit, saying that they will bring down the price of diesel today by one pence a litre and unleaded petrol by two pence and one pence a litre respectively across most of their petrol stations.
The average price for a litre of unleaded petrol in the UK on Monday was 136.5p, just short of the record seen in May, while diesel is currently priced at more than 140p a litre.
The cost of Brent crude oil sank 5.2 per cent to $103.74 a barrel yesterday – its lowest since February – in the wake of Standard & Poor’s US credit rating downgrade, which investors fear could undermine consumer confidence and future demand for oil and gas.
The fall in the FTSE 100 index further threw the oil sector into disarray. BP shares slid by 1.85 per cent yesterday to 403.5p while Premier Oil fell six per cent to 327.3p.