UK's most expensive supermarket for petrol in the UK named in new data

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Asda has been named as the UK's priciest supermarket for fuel, according to a recent analysis by the RAC.The report revealed that Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury's were selling petrol at an average of 2.1p less per litre than Asda at the end of May.

The gap was even wider when it came to diesel prices, with Asda charging an average of 2.5p more per litre.For many years, Asda has had a reputation for offering the cheapest fuel and was often the first supermarket to reduce pump prices, the RAC noted.

However, things changed after the supermarket was acquired by billionaire siblings, the Issa brothers, and private equity firm TDR Capital in 2021.When Asda purchased the UK and Irish operations of petrol station giant EG Group owned by the Issa brothers in May last year, Mohsin Issa claimed the deal would allow him to offer "Asda's highly competitive fuel" to a larger customer base.But a report published by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in July last year suggested that Asda's target fuel margin the difference between what it paid for fuel and the pump price was set to be three times higher for 2023 compared with 2019.Despite this, TDR Capital managing director Gary Lindsay told the Commons' Business and Trade Committee in January that Asda did not have "a particular strategy to bump the price of fuel or to make a larger profit on fuel".The RAC's analysis also found that across all UK forecourts, the average price of petrol fell by 2.4p per litre last month to 147.9p, while diesel prices dropped by 4.5p per litre to 153.6p.RAC senior policy officer Rod Dennis expressed his concern over the slow decline in fuel prices despite a decrease in wholesale costs.