Petrol price ‘fix’ cost motorists £300bn

MOTORISTS have paid up to £300BILLION too much for petrol in the last decade, it was claimed last night — as a price-fixing probe was launched into Shell and BP.
The two oil giants face criminal charges and massive fines if they are found guilty of rigging the cost of fuel.

Raided ... Shell's office in South London

Their alleged actions have falsely pushed up petrol prices for Britain’s 30million drivers — potentially costing each one thousands of pounds.
The Petrol Retailers’ Association yesterday estimated that if each motorist lost £10,000 over the decade the overall cost would be close to £300billion.

'National scandal' ... Tory MP Robert Halfon

A petrol industry source said: “It’s impossible to put an exact figure on the loss but it will be hundreds of billions — £300billion is a fair estimate.”
Protest groups said any petrol price fixing would also have raised the cost of food, clothing and everyday goods, shut businesses with the loss of jobs — and helped spark the UK recession.
BP and Shell’s offices in London were raided on Monday as part of a Europe-wide investigation.
The giants are accused of working together to fix the price of oil and green biofuels for their own gain — pushing up the cost of petrol and diesel at the pumps.
The oil price reporting agency Platt is also being investigated, along with the Norwegian company Statoil.
The shock European Commission probe has echoes of the Libor scandal when banks fixed interest rates for their own gain — but potentially has much more of an impact on the average consumer.
It comes after YEARS of campaigning by The Sun to cut the cost of fuel.
Petrol prices have soared by more than 80 per cent to 136.24p per litre since 2002 — prompting our Keep It Down campaign.
Former haulier Peter Carroll, a founder of campaign group Fair Fuel UK, said: “Even the tiniest fraction of a penny on the cost of petrol multiplied up by the billions of litres sold will be a huge amount of money and will have caused huge suffering.

'Encouraging' ... hauliers boss Geoff Dunning

“Businesses will have been lost, livelihoods destroyed and families will have been under the cosh longer and harder than they needed to be.
“The price of everything could have gone up because of this. Fuel is to the economy what oxygen is to the body.
“Every part of everyone’s lives, even if they don’t drive, is affected — 97 per cent of everything we eat, drink, wear or build will be carried by a diesel truck.”
Mr Carroll said the price of crude oil surged from $93 to $147 a barrel within a few months in 2008, which “could have kicked parts of the world into recession”.
The group’s spokesman Quentin Willson said the alleged scandal is worse than the Libor fixing.
He insisted: “This has potentially cost the UK economy hundreds of billions of pounds. There are costs to businesses and families which they wouldn’t have had to pay otherwise.
“Globally it has cost trillions.”
The Petrol Retailers’ Association said it had long been suspicious of freak wholesale price rises — jumping as much as 5p in less than a week.
Chairman Brian Madderson said: “Such volatility has been a relatively new unwelcome market phenomenon which cannot be explained to confused and irate customers on our forecourts.
“We hope this Europe-led investigation will help to provide the proper price transparency that consumers and businesses deserve and need.”

'This has cost trillions' ... Quentin Willson

The Road Haulage Association welcomed the probe. Chief executive Geoff Dunning said: “This is extremely encouraging for the motorist, the haulage industry and the UK economy.
“At a time when businesses are desperately trying to get back on their feet after several very difficult years, there finally appears to be a light at the end of the oil pricing tunnel.”
The European Commission suspects firms “colluded in reporting distorted prices” to agencies that publish oil and petrol figures.
It added: “Even small distortions of assessed prices could have a huge impact on the prices of crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels purchases and sales, potentially harming final consumers.”
The Office of Fair Trading was widely criticised yesterday for not probing price fixing fears more thoroughly. In January it said it found “no credible evidence” of wrongdoing.
BP and Shell said they are co-operating fully with investigators. They could face billions of pounds in fines if found guilty of price fixing.
Dr Andrew Pressey, head of marketing at the University of Birmingham, said in the last two decades firms in general have paid out a total of more than £198BILLION in fines globally for price fixing.