Yesterday it was announced that the price of a barrel of oil soared to an all time high of $135 – double the amount of what it cost a year ago. Unleaded petrol is now 18% more expensive than it was a year ago, and the price of diesel has shot up by a massive 30%, making the average price of a litre of unleaded £1.14, with a litre of diesel costing about £126.4 pence per litre.

The AA have said that another $5 leap in the oil price corresponds to a further 2.5p to the price at the pump, and many analysts estimate that UK drives will collectively spend over £100 million on fuel this Bank Holiday weekend – 75% of which will go to the government in the form of fuel duty. The government are urging drivers not to panic buy in bulk, as this is likely to exacerbate the situation.

One way of keeping tabs on the prices of fuel in your local area is to check out the awesome Petrol Prices site – this site has been spreading via word of mouth and is one of the most useful online tools we’ve seen in a long time.

You simply type in your postcode, hit enter, and the search engine gives you the highest and lowest prices in the area for unleaded, diesel, super unleaded and LPG. There is also a column for LRP, but who uses that anymore? The average price for petrol in your postcode area is also calculated, so you can work out for yourself how much you’re saving/being ripped off by.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Savings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.