Petrol Prices

Since March 1983 i have kept a detailed record of petrol prices and petrol consumption, spanning fourteen different cars, both privately-owned and company. The table below records the movement in petrol prices over that period, taking in each year the first petrol purchase in March. Prices are for leaded 4-star up to 1988, and unleaded thereafter. This roughly corresponds to the point when unleaded took over from 4-star as the standard petrol.

The table shows that the price of petrol in real terms is now 4% lower in March 2009 than in 1983, the oil price having fallen substantially since March 2008. However, this disguises the fact that "real" petrol prices fell between 1983 and 1992, encouraging a boom in road traffic, but then rose sharply due to the "petrol duty escalator", resulting in the petrol protest of 2000. At this time, petrol prices had risen by over 50% in five years, which undoubtedly caused much hardship. The rate of Retail Price Index inflation has also fallen slightly between 2008 and 2009.

The table also does not show peak prices in my local area, which were 224.6p/gallon (49.4p/litre) in October 1990, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and 390.5p/gallon (85.9p/litre) in June 2000, just before the petrol protest. Around this time I even paid 404.1p/gallon (88.9p/litre) in the Scottish Highlands. It seems that peak prices tend to occur in the autumn, and March, just as winter demand is tailing off, is often a low point in the year.

In 2005 there was a marked rise in the international price of oil, leading to a peak price of 426.9p/gallon (93.9p/litre) in September and October. Also since the beginning of March 2008 there was a further sharp spike in the international oil price, with unleaded reaching a startling peak in July of 540.5p/gallon (118.9p/litre).

Of the March 2012 price of 134.1p/litre, 80.3p or 59.9% went to the government (57.95p fuel duty and 22.35p VAT).