Petrol could soon be selling for under £1 a litre as a result of the plummeting global oil price – a pump price last seen in late May 2009 – claims RAC.
The price of Brent crude has fallen below the $60 a barrel mark for the first time since early July 2009 and is predicted to keep on dropping after OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) indicated it would not cut production even if oil hit $40 a barrel.
There was “a very good chance”, said the motoring organisation, that forecourt prices would continue to fall as the price of a barrel of crude went lower, which the RAC is hopeful will lead to petrol being sold nationally for under £1 a litre in the first few months of the new year with the price of a litre a little above that mark..
The RAC’s monitoring of fuel prices shows the average price of a litre of petrol is currently 116.9p – 13.89p a litre cheaper than the start of the year when it was 130.79p – and diesel is 15.91p cheaper at 122.33p a litre compared to 138.24p in January.
An RAC spokesman said: “The prospect of petrol going below £1 a litre in the new year is incredible, particularly when prices at the beginning of 2014 seemed to be heading ever upwards. Current forecasts are for average petrol prices to fall to below 110p a litre in the next fortnight and diesel to drop to under 116p. At these average prices across the country the cheapest retailers will almost certainly be selling petrol for around 105p a litre, or even lower.”