April 2012

Average prices for Unleaded are now over £1.43 per litre,

Average prices for Diesel are now over £1.45 per litre,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Retail Motor Industry warns of further rapid fuel price rises! in 2012

“Fears for the UK economy to be realised with record fuel cost rises”

 

Their fuel price monitoring system BIG OIL, has seen the steepest and fastest ever increase rise in wholesale costs over the festive period according to RMI Petrol.

From December 19th 2011 to January 5th 2012 the cost of diesel increased by nearly 4.5 ppl and Unleaded Petrol by as much as 5.00 ppl with 20% VAT still to be added.

RMI Pterol fear that the average UK prices for Diesel currently close to £1.41 ppl, will soon push past the 9th May peak of £143 ppl and hit new record levels – perhaps even breaching £1.45 ppl in the next few weeks.

These increases have been so rapid that fuel retailers have had scant time to react over the holidays and  few have yet made any significant increases yet to their pump prices.

The reasons listed for the increases:

Growing tensions over Iran’s nuclear intentions and threat to blockade the “Straights of Hormuz” where 30%-40% of the worlds oil supplies are shipped through

Refinery shut downs – Petroplus Holdings closed 3 EU refinery’s due to US bank freezing  US$1.0 bn of the companies loans.

Repsol – Spain’s largest oil company halted production this week at its Petronor Refinery near Bilbao due to weakening profit margins.

Cash flow strains from high pricing forces oil companies to balance their books and cut stocks to very low levels.

 

Fill up your tank, beat the oil companies price rise or get Microlon now!

While the volatility in the price of oil may be behind us (for now), motorists shouldn’t get too used to it, analysts have warned

3 Jun 2011

 

The price of Brent crude oil is more or less back to where it is some three months ago, at $116 a barrel, suggesting that the days of petrol price volatility are behind us … for now.

Though the civil war in Libya rumbles on, outbursts of civil unrest are occurring more often in holiday resorts these days than they are in oil producing nations, giving motorists that stable supplies of the black stuff will spare them more wallet-busting price hikes.

Barclays Capital, however, thinks motorists can kiss goodbye to the notion of petrol prices moving back down to the 122p per litre that was the norm in the UK at the end of 2010. According to the Automobile Association (AA), the average price rose to 137p per litre for unleaded 95 octane. That’s 622p a gallon for you greybeards.

Better get used to it, seems to be the message.

“Meanwhile, the upside risks emanating from pure supply-demand dynamics (leaving aside the large number of geopolitical risks) are growing. Thus, the oil market is neither in a position of fundamental nor political balance at this point, and the current imbalance tends to skew price risks to the upside, in our view,” BarCap added.“Pent-up consumer demand and higher break-even price requirements from OPEC [Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries] members to balance their rising fiscal spending continue to keep a solid floor under oil prices at current levels,” the investment arm of Barclays said.

Goldman Sachs is another bank that is bullish on the oil price, and bearish on the state of motorists’ wallets.

“While near-term downside risk remains as the oil market negotiates the slowdown in the pace of world economic growth, we believe that the market will continue to tighten to critical levels by 2012, pushing oil prices substantially higher to restrain demand,” the US investment bank said. The bank thinks that with the global economy growing faster than non-OPEC oil producing countries can pump out oil, the likelihood is that inventories will subside and OPEC will have to use spare capacity to meet demand.

“In our view, it is only a matter of time until inventories and OPEC spare capacity will become effectively exhausted, requiring higher oil prices to restrain demand, keeping it in line with available supplies,” Goldman Sachs said in a recent research note.

Twelve months from now, Goldman Sachs sees the price of Brent crude rising to around $130 a barrel, which should see the petrol price spike nicely in time for all the visitors to the Olympics in London to be shocked by the petrol prices. According to the AA’s calculations, $10 on a barrel of oil translates to around 4p up on a litre on the price of petrol, so if Goldman Sachs is correct, this time next year motorists can expect to be paying around 143p a litre for regular unleaded.

If it is any consolation, according to the AA’s research, there are 11 countries in Europe that pay more for their petrol than the UK, with Norway proving the most expensive at the equivalent of 152.62p a litre. Bad news for the Norwegian motorist when he decides to fill up the F(j)ord …

The comparative picture is not so good for drivers with diesel engines. The average price per litre of diesel in the UK in May was 141.5p, a price only surpassed by the poor folk in Norway.

The prices paid for petrol and diesel in Norway (and the UK, for that matter) would likely prompt riots in the USA, where the AA says the average price for petrol is 64.754p a litre, while for diesel, the cost is 66.41p a litre.