Oil reached an all time high of $135 per barrel last week, however it has been falling gradually since hitting that peak. A barrel of crude oil now costs $123.38 per barrel, so why are petrol prices not falling too?
With oil now costing around 10% less per barrel than this time last week, you would expect to see prices at the fuel pumps falling too.
When the price of oil was rising to that record high, we were seeing daily increases in prices at the pumps so when oil prices subside, as they are currently doing, we should start to see daily decreases in the prices of petrol and diesel.
Well that is not happening in my area. As I said yesterday, I saw diesel being sold for £1.33 per litre, yet the crude oil price was then around 9% lower than its high last week.
I understand that there will always be a lag between changes to the oil price and the prices we see at the pumps, but prices seem to respond upwards to higher crude oil prices far faster than responding downwards.
It seems that oil companies and fuel retailers are taking this opportunity to maximise their profits, to the cost of us all.
