09/03/2026
Dear customers,
You may have noticed significant differences in fuel prices between forecourts recently. We’ve also seen some suggestions online that forecourts are profiteering or price gouging. From our perspective, and I’m sure for many independent forecourts, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Independent forecourts, like ourselves, buy fuel under retail supply contracts from oil companies. Some contracts use a daily price, where the cost of fuel delivered today is based on the wholesale Platts price set the previous day. Others (often supermarkets or larger groups) operate on weekly or fortnightly averaged pricing, meaning their cost can lag behind movements in the wholesale market.
The Platts price is heavily influenced by the Brent crude oil price. When global events push oil prices up sharply, such as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, wholesale fuel prices can rise very quickly, sometimes impacting deliveries the very next day.
A fair question is: “But hasn’t that fuel already been refined, transported and stored in the UK?”
While that may be true physically, fuel is traded on global markets and priced daily across the supply chain. Forecourts therefore pay the current market price at the point of delivery.
At Exelby Services we pride ourselves on offering some of the most competitive fuel prices on the A1(M), A19, M6 and M62. However, because we purchase fuel on a daily-priced supply contract and we have very high fuel turnover (with multiple fuel deliveries per day), wholesale price increases reach us extremely quickly.
For the first time ever, we sold diesel at a loss over the past weekend. Today we have increased our diesel pump price to 163.9p per litre, which is only just break-even at today's delivery costs.
We appreciate customers keeping an eye on prices and shopping around; there are several free websites that track forecourt prices across the UK.
Once wholesale prices stabilise, we look forward to continuing to offer you the competitive fuel prices you expect from us.
Kind regards,
Rob Exelby
Managing Director
Exelby Services