MOTORISTS in Scotland have been the worst hit by a rise in fuel prices since February, with motoring campaigners warning that price volatility is now as bad as it was in May 2011.
Since mid February, the average price of petrol in the UK has risen 3.64p a litre in a month and 4p in Scotland, which now has the highest average price at 112.5p a litre.
Meanwhile diesel has experienced the highest average rise of any UK region, up 3.4p since February to 118.9p, making Scotland the most expensive place to fill up overall, thanks mainly to the added costs of supplying fuel to remote and island communities. In Shetland, for example, petrol currently costs up to 120p per litre and 124p per litre for diesel.
The rise, which comes after fuel prices fell to their lowest level in more than five years in February, has been driven by a 33 per cent rebound in the price of oil from $45 in January to $60 earlier this month, and back to just under $55 now.
On February 1, the average UK petrol price had dropped to 106.39p per litre - the lowest since October 2009 - but now stands at 111.92, an increase of 5.5p in six weeks.
For diesel, the end of winter has seen the wholesale price start to drop away. Having risen 5p a litre with the oil price surge, a penny has been lopped off in the past week. At the pump, the average price is 4.8p higher than when the price crash bottomed out at 113.42p on February 1.
The AA said motorists were unlikely to see the latest dip in oil prices, from $60 to less than $55 a barrel, passed on at the pump.
A spokesman said: Although there's been a fall in the price of oil it not looking like it's going to be passed on. The fall from $60 to $55 is not being reflected in the wholesale price and there are various reasons for that. There's a lot of demand for petrol in the Us and Africa, so it's been refined here and shipped over there - that's one reason.
"Meanwhile, the pound has lost a fair amount of value against the dollar over the last fortnight.
"Drivers in some areas of the UK are going to be extremely unhappy that the price of oil has gone down but they're not going to see any effect at the pump. We're back at the age old problem that we don't have full transparency. The retailers aren't to blame; it's the refiners to an extent and simply market conditions and a UK currency policy that seems to be hellbent on reducing the value of sterling."
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