UK: Fuel sales down by half a billion litres

Nearly half a billion fewer litres of petrol and diesel were sold between April and June than during the same period last year, according to new figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The fall came after sales rose at the start of the year when the threat of a tanker drivers’ strike triggered panic buying.

The government figures show that more than 2 billion fewer litres of petrol and diesel were sold compared with the same period in 2008.

In the first half of this year, a total of 16.7 billion litres of fuel was sold. This compares with total sales of nearly 19 billion litres between January and June 2008.

Motoring organisation the AA said that ever-increasing prices in recent years have sent petrol sales into steady decline and the panic buying at the end of March may have brought forward sales in early April.

Wet weather may also have played a part, it added, whil pointing out that petrol prices slumped more than 10ppl between mid April and the end of June, and UK drivers began to travel further with lighter evenings, bank holidays and the Queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations.

Edmund King, AA president, said: “A 10.6% fall in petrol sales this past quarter is a huge drop. While we welcome the fact that new cars have become more fuel efficient, this goes nowhere near to accounting for the crash in demand over the past three months and the past five years.

“A fall of 2.27 billion litres in UK fuel sales over the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2008 has got to bring some sense of reality to the fuel market and government.”

forecourttrader.co.uk