Supermarkets cut diesel price to below £1 a litre

Following Morrisons’ decision to cut diesel to below £1 a litre on 3 January, supermarket chains Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's have followed suit.

The price of petrol, typically cheaper than diesel, fell below £1 a litre in the weeks before Christmas, its cheapest since 2009. Morrisons, Asda and Tesco are charging charge 99.7p per litre of diesel. Sainsbury's is charging 99.9p. Asda, which has 277 filling stations, says it was the first to cut the price of petrol to below £1 a litre in November, as does Morrisons.

While this offers good news to diesel car drivers, the RAC has said that the move was overdue.

RAC Fuel Watch spokesman Pete Williams said: "The UK's 11 million diesel drivers will clearly welcome this move by the big supermarkets, although it would be fair to say it has been slow in coming. The wholesale price of diesel has been around two pence cheaper than the wholesale price of petrol since a couple of weeks before Christmas so we should have seen these cuts earlier and that is what the RAC has been calling for.

"We hope that other supermarkets and the cheaper fuel retailers will follow suit swiftly and do the right thing for motorists. This should reduce the average price of diesel across the UK for motorists everywhere who can then benefit from the low price of crude oil on the world commodity market."

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