Sainsbury’s announced yesterday (20 October) that it was cutting the price of unleaded petrol and diesel by one pence per litre across its 300 forecourts. The supermarket giant also announced a boost in points awarded on the Nectar loyalty card for fuel purchases until the end of October.

Tesco, Asda and Morrisons also announced a 1p per litre drop in petrol and diesel prices across their networks.

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: “While this is more good news for motorists, we would like retailers to make bigger cuts as wholesale prices indicate that there is a saving of at least 3p a litre on petrol and well over 2p on diesel that they should be passing on at the pumps.

“These low prices are being driven by an over-supply of oil which has kept the cost of a barrel under $52 since early August which has led to a reduction in the price retailers pay for fuel. If they were to pass on more of these savings we would see both petrol and diesel heading back towards the six-year low average prices we saw at the beginning of the year.”

“The average price of petrol currently stands at 109.21p and diesel at 110.96p, just a few pence above those seen in early February this year which were the lowest average prices seen for six years – 106.9p for petrol and 113.29p for diesel.”