Asda is the first fuel retailer to publish its petrol and diesel prices online
- Fuel prices are displayed on its website every morning at 10:30am
- It shows the previous day’s closing price at each of the UK’s 320 petrol stations
- The supermarket giant is developing a system to display real-time prices
Asda claims to be the first fuel retailer to publish daily local petrol and diesel prices online amid mounting pressure from government and watchdogs.
The group revealed that the price of each of its 320 petrol stations in the UK will be made available in the shop search section of its website.
The latest fuel prices are displayed every morning at 10:30 am with the closing price of the previous day. And further development will lead to a new system that can show real-time prices within ‘the coming months’.
It means drivers can go online to find the cheapest places to fill up near where they live or on their way to a destination.
Asda becomes the first fuel retailer to publish daily petrol and diesel prices at each of its filling stations in the shop locator section of its website
The supermarket said it is “working” with the government to help develop an “industry-wide fuel search programme” to make it even easier for motorists to find the cheapest places to fill up and – hopefully – encourage retailers to pay more to offer competitive prices.
A spokesman said: ‘Asda is proud to be the price leader in fuel, and by sharing our prices online, customers can find the best value at the pump before they get in the car.’
Reacting to the news, Simon Williams, fuel spokesman for the RAC, said: ‘While it is good to see supermarkets starting to publish their pump prices, we don’t believe that showing them on websites will cause retailers to suddenly start charging fairer prices, especially when free mobile apps like ‘myRAC’ can actually compare prices between all fuel retailers – big and small – anywhere in the country.”
However, PetrolPrices.com disputes that this is the first time Asda has published fuel prices online.
It told us that the group used to do this before they removed the service a few years ago, around the time of the The £6.8 billion takeover of the Issa brothers in 2021.
The latest fuel prices are displayed online every morning at 10:30 am with the closing price of the previous day
In May, the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) long-running investigation into the fuel retail segment concluded that retailers, especially supermarkets, had raised prices more than necessary to increase profit margins.
This was especially the case with diesel in 2022 and in 2023, which had been kept artificially high compared to much lower wholesale prices.
It said: ‘The recent high fuel prices paid by drivers cannot be attributed solely to factors beyond the control of retailers, such as the war in Ukraine, which has led to a rise in wholesale prices.’
Instead, the watchdog found evidence that “some weakening of competition” had driven up prices at the pump.
Regulators are also looking into Asda’s £2.3bn deal for a service station operator over fears it could drive up fuel prices.
RAC Fuel Watch data also showed that the four major supermarkets, which dominate fuel retailing, have been slow to pass on wholesale cost cuts this year, particularly for diesel – a point RAC made clear in its submission to the CMA- research.
Mr Williams continued: ‘Real competition is key, and this is something we’re sadly lacking at the moment, except in Northern Ireland where fuel is over 4p a liter cheaper than the rest of the UK.
“We don’t believe we’re likely to see any real change until we have an official price control body, as recommended by the CMA, with the power to impose fines on companies that fail to properly reflect significant wholesale market downturns at their gas stations.” . .’