YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    Petrol: New Round Of Price Cuts At Pumps

    Further cuts to petrol and diesel prices have been announced amid fierce supermarket competition.

    Morrisons sparked a likely supermarket round of cuts on Thursday by being the first to announce reductions in its fuel prices for drivers from 3pm.

    It would take up to 2p a litre off petrol and 1p a litre off diesel, the company said.

    Sainsbury's later confirmed it would cut its prices for both unleaded and diesel by up to 2p a litre from Friday while Asda soon followed up with news that from Friday morning its customers would pay no more than 129.7p a litre for petrol and 134.7p a litre for diesel.

    Tesco would make similar reductions from Thursday afternoon, it announced.

    [Related feature: Brits hit the motorways to soak up some Bank Holiday sun]


    The move by Morrisons was the latest in a series of reductions by supermarkets over the last few weeks as wholesale costs have fallen.

    Morrisons petrol director Mark Todd said: "With a sunny bank holiday weekend predicted, we're expecting to see high numbers of motorists filling their tanks for family trips out.

    "That's why we're passing on these savings in time for the pre-bank holiday shop."

    But the AA's head of public affairs, Paul Watters, cautioned motorists on the long term outlook.

    He said: "Today's supermarket price war comes on the back of yesterday's 40-dollars-a-tonne fall in petrol wholesale prices across Europe - equivalent, with VAT, to a 2.5p-a-litre fall at the pump.

    "However, just as one swallow doesn't make a summer, two days of commodity price falls doesn't signal the end of drivers' pump misery.

    "If this trend continues, that would be a good start to the summer season but no-one should under-estimate the market's ability to send prices shooting up again, often just on pure speculation."

    Mr Watters said that yesterday the average UK price of petrol fell to 134.77p a litre and diesel to 139.24p. This compared with start-of-the-year prices of around 132p for petrol and 140p for diesel.

    More From Sky News