If I look at the RAC page
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/fuel-watch/
The wholesale diesel price (48p) is almost 5p cheaper than the petrol price ( 53p).
Every other component making up the final price at pump are pretty similar, however the retailer margin is 4.44p for petrol and a staggering 20.83p for diesel.
Why are retailers doing so and how can they get away with it?
Why don’t they charge 12p for either petrol or diesel?
4 comments
Do they sell less of it maybe? I’ve no idea if they do but it might explain it if they are moving lower volumes while having otherwise similar overheads
Is there a tax difference? Diesel is a dirtier fuel
Wholesale diesel is expensive at the moment, more than wholesale petrol.
Refining oil tends to produce products in roughly fixed ratios, at least in the short term. There are cracking and reforming processes you can do to change the output ratios, but only a bit and they are slow to build and complex to operate.
The UK tends to use more diesel and more aviation fuel, and less petrol, than UK refineries produce, so it tends to import diesel and aviation fuel. This is also true of much of the rest of Europe.
A lot of diesel imported in the UK used to come from Russian refineries. I think you can see the problem with that now. This means that diesel comes from further afield, and is harder to get, and therefore costs more.
Additional aviation fuel comes, apparently, from the Gulf, so those supplies are still reliable.
Update: See page 17 of [https://online.flippingbook.com/view/570304713/17/](https://online.flippingbook.com/view/570304713/17/) for the breakdown of sources in 2020. See that Russia supply has dropped greatly in 2022: [https://online.flippingbook.com/view/740671217/17/](https://online.flippingbook.com/view/740671217/17/) and note that much of that supply in 2022 probably arrived before the Russian Government invaded Ukraine.
There’s a lot of other info about petroleum fuel supply in these reports too. UKPIA is the trade association of the main refiners, distributors, and producers of petroleum products in the UK.
The “retailer margin” is where the supply and demand is. They charge more for diesel because there’s demand enough to sell it at that price.