Forums Forums National News Fuel Duty March 2022

Can someone explain to me, how the petrol prices at the pumps is still the same as it was last week, This week the Chancellor Rishi Sunak dropped it down by 5p a liter, as we have four and a half per gallon that's a cut of nearly 21 pence a gall, so why hasn't the price at the pumps gone down from Tuesday/Wednesday?

Some chains increased the price the day before the duty change which effectively wiped out some or all of the 5p reduction.

Most supermarkets reduced the price immediately.

Some petrol chains (eg Shell) said they would reduce the price when they bought new stock as the existing stock had already paid duty at the higher rate.

Thanks for that!
Someone just told me, the tax reduction doesn't have to be passed on to the the motorist by the petrol companies, if this is correct what is the point of a tax cut, if you still get ripped off and the petrol companies get richer, unless this is some kind of deal the government is doing with oil companies, finding other sources of fuel etc so we knock a few pence per lt, nothing for the motorist, but extra profit for you guys!

Same as most goods you buy, the retailer can charge what they like, its up to the customer to choose if they want to pay that price or not.

The Government gets over half of the money you pay for petrol, which wouldn't be a problem if they were then distributing that revenue fairly amongst society - which they aren't.

Are the petrol companies making excessive profits? I doubt it, not compared to many other things you buy. While the profits appear huge, the companies are huge, there are a lot of financial risks in the petrol business. Looking at Shell, they made an out-of-ordinary profit of about £20bn in 2001 on a company worth around £150bn, some years they have made losses If they ran too close to the margin we would have the situation we currently have with energy companies going bust every time there is a blip in the market.