[Closed] Why're petrol prices still so high?

Profiteering.

More to the point, why have you bought VPower fuel? Isn't that basically a gimmick?

Because worldwide demand for fuel has not dropped?

Oil prices have dropped this month. Petrol pump prices are ALWAYS slow to follow when prices are dropping. It's always been this way.

More to the point, why have you bought VPower fuel? Isn’t that basically a gimmick?

Depends if you have a car which cant use the new E10 standard.

For OP the prices of oil have only just dropped back in last week and they will be doing the normal pass increases on quickly but decreases more slowly.
Plus for vpower they might now just charge more since some people are forced to use it.

Depends if you have a car which cant use the new E10 standard.

But I thought most fuel stations are still supplying E5?

Given the oil price is the same as it was 2 years ago

Source? This and this seem to suggest it's still significantly higher?

I've always ran my car on V-power. My friend worked for BP in fuel development and was VOCAL in his praise of Shell Vpower and its effects on performance and engine operation. I've had several BMW M cars and they all run like crap on normal fuel and even Tesco 99 momentum. V-power made it all good again.

Similarly, I had a Mini Cooper S Clubman and when it wen't in for it's major service, the main dealer commented how clean the engine internals were noting that the heads were usually coked up by this point in their life.

It's always worked well for me for the fractional difference in price.

My friend worked for BP in fuel development and was VOCAL in his praise of Shell Vpower

Well they are going to be, given it's their job to develop fuel. 🙂

Personally I have never believed the hype and can't say I have ever noticed any of my cars being 'crap' or having any issues with fuel whatsoever - in the last 20 or so years... Citroen, Renault, Ford, Ford, Vauxhall, Mazda, Ford, Audi, Audi, Audi, Volvo, Mercedes.

Fair enough, if I was looking for marginal gains around a track in a racing situation then I accept that VPowerMaxFullThrottle will have a performance benefit but I am just going to the shops, picking the kids up from school, going to the seaside...

Oil at it's recent high was <10% greater/barrel than it was in the same period in 2019. Fuel at the same time was £1.27-1.31, so £1.37ish for SU. Prices are currently 20% higher, not the 10% reflected in the barrel price. Today, that barrel price is pretty much where it was in 2019, but that's happened in the past few days due to the new covid variant and its possible effects on air travel.

Daffy
Similarly, I had a Mini Cooper S Clubman and when it wen’t in for it’s major service, the main dealer commented how clean the engine internals were noting that the heads were usually coked up by this point in their life.

It’s always worked well for me for the fractional difference in price.

I agree but the price difference 'int small, it's around a tenner a tank more round here!

Its still way too cheap judging by the number of cars on the road every day

Does anyone else think they are getting a lot less mpg with the new E10 fuel? SO not are we paying through the nose for it, i am getting a lot less for me my money, miles wise?

V-Power is higher octane, and if you have a car that can adjust its timing sufficiently (i.e. a fancy 'performance' ish car) then it will indeed run much better on it. If you have a normal car, not so much.

With diesels, they will all get the advantage* but it won't be as marked. Just a bit smoother and a bit more efficient.

* of fancy diesel. They won't get an advantage if you put fancy petrol in. Quite the opposite in fact.

@johndoh - You missed the point - he worked for BP and was advocating use of SHELL VPower. My friend was as smart as they come - A-levels in 1 year, degree in 2 more and PhD in another 2. He was recruited straight to BP on a 6 figure salary as soon as his PhD was complete. He really knew his stuff.

I agree but the price difference ‘int small, it’s around a tenner a tank more round here!

At the moment the difference is MUCH bigger than it's even been. It used to be around 3-5% more expensive, but It's now closer to 10%. Still on an annual basis £10 a tank, once per month, £120 a year, it's not much.

^^ Ahh, fair enough, still wouldn't convince me to spend more refuelling a car though.

Does anyone else think they are getting a lot less mpg with the new E10 fuel? SO not are we paying through the nose for it, i am getting a lot less for me my money, miles wise?

Yes, I reckon I'm getting around 10% less - using rough in my head maths

Its still way too cheap judging by the number of cars on the road every day

I agree. Petrol and diesel prices need to be higher. Much higher. The Fuel Price Escalator should never have been put on hold. But, also, investment in the alternatives needs to also be much higher, and also across the whole UK. [ cough, Northern Power House Rail, Yorkshire lines electrification, North East leg of HS2 ]

I find E5 Super, I can get 5 mpg more easily on a 'run' in my 'old' but just E10 compatible car. That negates the 5p more per litre. That said, it depends if the 'pump' is available, and some stations aren't doing super (local Asda near work was E10 only yesterday).

My car hasn't been run mich for the last two years and really threw a wobble with E10 - rough idle, patchy acceleration at low revs. Got some "stuff" on line, and ran three tanks with it in to clean the injectors. The car is now fine on E10, without any 'additive'. I'll pop the 'stuff' in every 4 tanks as the car is old, 20 years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59477093.amp

Looking at a petrol price sign and seeing £1.60 is a bit of a shock, I think the shock factor alone is going to drive EV sales even higher.

Petrol and diesel prices need to be higher. Much higher. The Fuel Price Escalator should never have been put on hold.

It's almost as if the Tories care more about keeping the gammons happy than they do about the environment.

Its still way too cheap judging by the number of cars on the road every day

Whilst I sympathise with this (I only drive around 1500 miles a year, but cycle around 6000 miles), many people have bought houses or taken jobs based upon use of a car to get to/from them. They may not be in a position to move/switch either. Should they be paying more just "because"?

Don't worry, the benefits of super-normal profits will trickle down to you. Mebbes.

I use the occasional tank of super-fuel in the hope of cleaning the engine a bit but mostly run on supermarket petrol for the convenience.

People who say it does nothing could also just give their bikes the occasional spray with WD40 for all lubrication. It basically does the same thing as the fancy pants lubes people pay more for and I noticed no difference in my chain performance or wear in the month I tried it...

Similarly, I had a Mini Cooper S Clubman and when it wen’t in for it’s major service, the main dealer commented how clean the engine internals were noting that the heads were usually coked up by this point in their life.

That's properly major if the head comes off for a service.

I have not noticed any difference with the E10 fuel, although having said that I tend to alternate between Tesco Momentum and Morrison’s 95 Ron, so most of the time it’s probably E7.5 and 97RON. Does run noticeably smoother on the higher grade fuel, but the half and half is still better than 95RON.

Inspected with a boroscope due to the known problems with the head.

Should they be paying more just “because”?

Just because of global warming? Yeah maybe they should.

Back to the OP, I believe that he has just discovered the concept of what economists call 'sticky-downwards' prices.
(Economist, noun. Someone who sees something working I practice and wonders if it can be made to work in theory)
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sticky-down.asp

Fuel prices never fall as far or as fast as the go up. Never have, never will. Where the big issue though is that it's costing hauliers a lot more to move stuff around and that's having a direct effect on the price of goods in the shops. The company I'm working at this week has just put their delivert charge up by 10% due to extra fuel costs for example.

I find E5 Super, I can get 5 mpg more easily on a ‘run’ in my ‘old’ but just E10 compatible car. That negates the 5p more per litre.

Same with my Fabia but it's nearer 10mpg difference (low 50's down to low/mid 40's). When I've only got 59bhp to start with that small drop due to the E10 makes a big difference! It also runs smoother, especially when cold, so I fill up with the "Super Fuel" when it's available.

My old JDM Prelude ran better and had better MPG on Super Unleaded than regular fuel, enough to warrant the extra cost.

I was surprised that my heating oil wasn't quite as expensive as I thought it would be given forecourt prices.

Does anyone else think they are getting a lot less mpg with the new E10 fuel? SO not are we paying through the nose for it, i am getting a lot less for me my money, miles wise?

No need to think it… You are getting less mpg! Simples… Wouldn’t be so bad if the petrol was proportionally cheaper, but it isn’t, and cars not designed to run on E10 have been very marginalised now too.

To explain why, you need to understand the concept of the Stoichiometric ratio. For good old fashioned petrol (without any ethanol added), this has always been 14.7:1.

Ethanol, which is being added in increasing quantities, has a stoichiometric ratio of 9:1, which means approx 35% more of it is needed for the same air/fuel reaction than with conventional petrol. Methanol, as used in top fuel dragsters and Indy cars, is approx 6.5:1, and will run happily with a much richer mixture than that (petrol as we know is very picky, it doesn’t like to run rich or lean more than a tiny percentage), hence why Top Fuel dragsters will go through several gallons of the stuff in a 300m run!

Back to my point…

With E10, you have replaced an additional 5% of the mixture that burns at 14.7:1 with more of it that burns at 9:1. The Stoichiometric ratio of E5 petrol would be calculated at 14.415:1, and the ratio for E10 would be calculated at 14.13:1.

So going from E5 to E10 would yield just over a 2% reduction in fuel economy (which in itself was already a 2% reduction from normal petrol to E5), all things being equal. Except all things aren’t equal, and many/most cars on the road aren’t optimised to run on Ethanol in the way they are petrol, so there are other inefficiencies occurring.

Now obviously I haven’t pointed out Ethanol’s significant benefits here, in helping us to move away from a reliance on fossil fuels (albeit an arbitrarily small one if you ask me!), many countries have showed that with proper infrastructure and planning, Ethanol can be a viable fuel (and an easily renewable one) in its own right. But where we are in the UK now, it’s easy to be miffed as a consumer, with the lower quality fuel giving us worse economy, costing more, and potentially not being as good for our engines’ health in the long term either… Had to put a tank of E10 in my car recently as was all there was in remote town in Scotland, I noticed a loss in throttle response and got about 6% worse economy on that tankful than I would expect on 98/99RON E5… But then my car is optimised for a higher octane fuel anyway, so partly to be expected.

My old JDM Prelude ran better and had better MPG on Super Unleaded than regular fuel, enough to warrant the extra cost.

Higher octane fuel is, or at least was, the norm in Japan anyway… So any JDM performance cars at least from 90’s or early 00’s would have been optimised for 98RON or higher with 0% ethanol content.

Definately a fair bit of profiteering. Our local Morrisons is currently £1.50.9 for diesel whereas the Morrisons in Harrogate (8.5 miles away) is £1.47.7, which will still be +profit. Our Morrisons has zero competition so can bump it up.
Years ago I owned a petrol station & knew the formulae* for working out the bare price of fuel going off the spot crude oil market but I'm buggered if I can remember it now.

* how to work it out.

Given the oil price is the same as it was 2 years ago and petrol back then was £1.37/l of VPower Super Unleaded, why is it now so much higher?

Presumably because pretty much every other element in the petrol 'supply chain' has increased in price (cost) over the past 2 years?

i started driving about a thousand years ago, given inflation, it's remained more or less a constant price.

(it's roughly doubled in price, roughly in line with inflation)

i'll believe that petrol is expensive when i see literally *anyone* driving like it, or changing their behaviour, at all.

i have neighbours who drive their kids to school : that's 500m away.

i have colleagues that drive to work : it's a lot less than a mile from their house.

people buying cars that require ultimatemaxpower high octane fuel, and then using them as their daily-driver : yes, you're going to spend a lot on petrol, wait until you have to buy tyres...

i have neighbours who drive their kids to school : that’s 500m away.

i have colleagues that drive to work : it’s a lot less than a mile from their house.

The problem here won't be solved by increased fuel prices as they're not really going anywhere.

My late Father was a development engineer for Ford, specialising in fuel & homologation for 30 years. He would NEVER buy supermarket petrol.
From memory, his reason was that the additives in 'cheap' fuel were not as effective as those in fuel from BP, Shell and a few others, leading to coking of engine, drop in performance and premature wear of valve guides etc.

Should they be paying more just “because”?

Tricky one. I view it as a tax on things we want to discourage, like tobacco. Problem with this is the people who NEED discouraging (driving 500m to work, we all know them) pay naff all of this "tax" and people who do have valid reasons to drive are penalised a lot more.

It easy for me to say, cause i ride to work and nursery, and my car barely moves once every three weeks

chakaping

It’s almost as if the Tories care more about keeping the gammons happy than they do about the environment.

Replace gammons with voters and you are right. Which is why as Peter Mandelson said Labour's results in the last 11 elections are

"“Lose, lose, lose, lose, Blair, Blair, Blair, lose, lose, lose, lose.”"

If most voters want cheap fuel more than the environmental benefits of more cycling or public transport travelling then that is what the govt should deliver. Or they won't be the govt for long.

There's more to it than just the oil price.

Refining margins have historically been very tight, which is why all the major players exited the UK market. There's Esso at Fawley, but the rest of the UK's capacity is owned by people you've probably never heard of (apart from one sponsors a cycling team). Things have now swung back somewhat as capacity dwindles with margins increasing which directly impacts fuel prices.

There's also projections floating around that we might actually hit global oil production capacity next year, i.e the taps are almost fully open and the price is still rising.

Climate emergency, what f****** climate emergency.

For OP the prices of oil have only just dropped back in last week and they will be doing the normal pass increases on quickly but decreases more slowly.

Less of that, more that no one asks why the price has gone up until it does, then sees that the price of oil went up a few weeks/months ago. Then once they're bothered about it and watch the oil price they notice it drop by 10% and fail to realise that this probably only impacts on the actual fuel price by more than about 2p/l and complain that it's not dropped 10%.

Whilst I sympathise with this (I only drive around 1500 miles a year, but cycle around 6000 miles), many people have bought houses or taken jobs based upon use of a car to get to/from them. They may not be in a position to move/switch either. Should they be paying more just “because”?

Yes, "because" at some point ****ing the planet trumps other concerns.

The financial benefit of taking a better job with a big commute needs a penalty to offset the pollution caused for taking that job.

And no, my cousins, friends sister is a district nurse and has to travel between patients is not a good enough reason (especially as in that case the 45p/mile more than covers the ~11p fuel costs). And that is an exception, not the overall correlation, commutes increase with salary because those jobs tend to cluster, whereas lower to middle income jobs tend to be dispersed more uniformly.

ooh a thread for me..

Margins are now a lot higher, oil price is falling on the markets, but the retailers will be as slow as possible to pass this on, they are seeing significantly reduced volumes so are making sure their overall operating margins remain healthy.. Jut the way it. It will take tesco as usal to do a 10ppl off promotion for the prices to drop across the board.

Ref benefits of Shell etc.. Most has been said already, but majority performance benefits come from the add packs in the premium fuel markets like vpower, excellium, synergy. Points ref stoich ratio's, again broadly correct, however ethanol is not the only component in fuel that will have an impact, any oxygenate , including ethers and methyl’s will reduce the energy density (lower heating value/net calorific value), this is where depending on the operating conditions set within the ECU, you either loose power, or loose range.

You can then balance the above with the density of the fuel itself. If you've filled up your vehicle with a heavy cut, then you will by mass have more fuel vs volume (i.e. weight) and therefore perceive better mileage figures, either as a benefit to the above energy density issue, or significantly worse off if you also include the energy density issue. (you balance these various impacts in motorsport quite well)

as an example, LNG and Propane both have exceptional energy density, however the density of the fuel themselves, being gas, means you cannot hold the same volume by mass as the liquids even when compressed. These things burn bloomin hot though, you often see LPG conversions having melted pistons. Conversely, ethanol and Methanol have a "charge cooling effect", that lowers the combustion temperature which can help with pre-det.

Ref Japan - they have 2 x grades on the market a 90-92RON which is most common, and then the 100RON both controlled under the TRIAS regulations. both do not contain ethanol, but could contain other oxygenates such as ETBE

Also each molecule within fuel has characteristics that you look for - so back to the JDM and/or performance fuels - here you will have a mix heavy energy dens fuels, vs those that are lighter, with less energy dense - the reason is you want the individual ignition qualities of the molecules to perform at their preferred operating condition -i.e. a very heavy fuel that has all of it's ignition qualities in the back end is useless in a high revving engine as it cannot atomise fast enough, so resign this fuel to big low boost/NA muscle cars, where's as you may have a very light, but lower octane fuel, used in a high revving engine that sits at 12000rpm all day actually using the ignition qualities within that fuel and not detting. Again, there is a balance depending on application.

So why does this matter to MPG changes. UK fuel changes, a lot, between regions and seasonally, and between crude slates. One time, you will have cracked a light crude slate, you've got some good light, good octane components in the fuel with an even distribution, add in some additives and you've got a fuel that's cleaning valves and heads and operating really well - or rather as intended. You can reverse that, but why's that important. Simply because of economics. Do the refiners then have to put back into the fuel, further processed materials to bring octanes up, change distillation profiles, change vapour pressure (normally done with alkylate, pentanes and propane) - all of which are expensive to do - tso this get's passed on.

You've then got to consider the RTFO requirement for having [currently] 11.235% of your total fuel stream containing elements of bio and renewable components. Clearly, even at 10% ethanol you fall foul of this requirement so have to buy-out, this costs 50ppl (its not quite that simple, but that’s the gist) for every litre of fuel not containing what it should. Spread that across your diesel and then super pool of product, then someone has to make up the difference.

Sorry for the long post – quite a lot to cover..

yours the petrol pump attendant.. 😉

And no, my cousins, friends sister is a district nurse and has to travel between patients is not a good enough reason (especially as in that case the 45p/mile more than covers the ~11p fuel costs). And that is an exception, not the overall correlation, commutes increase with salary because those jobs tend to cluster, whereas lower to middle income jobs tend to be dispersed more uniformly

Seemingly speaking like someone who lives in a city or town?

I live in rural Norfolk, it is 12 miles to the nearest supermarket, buses run once on a tuesday and only to that supermarket and jobs in my industry are few are far between, and as we are a backwater, i was made redundant 3 times in the space of 5 years, so i cannot pick and choose jobs depending on which makes me happy or green, i would like too.

I tried to commute to my last job by bike, it was a 56 mile round trip, i managed it for 14 months and it physically broke and took over a year to recover..

So not everyone has choice, and not everyone can just turn round and choose not to drive.

€1.29 per litre for diesel in rural Spain just now, which equates to £1.12 per litre at my banks exchange rate of €1.16 to £1.

Pauly
Free Member
€1.29 per litre for diesel in rural Spain just now, which equates to £1.12 per litre at my banks exchange rate of €1.16 to £1.

fuel duty in Spain is only 37.9€c/l or approx 32ppl so 26ppl cheaper before VAT -so closer to £1.42/L by comparison - they're also probabyl still getting through old stocks.

the people who NEED discouraging (driving 500m to work, we all know them

Bit of a misconception this I think. People who drive really short distances use a lot of fuel per mile, but actually use up very little overall because the miles are so low. I've been sent 200 miles away for a 2hr meeting on numerous occasions, manager's whim for one day represents 3 months of someone doing a 2 mile commute.

‘So high’?
Do you mean ‘why is petrol unsustainably cheap? And why have successive governments continued to hold duty on it since about 2011’?

Why is petrol unsustainably cheap, exactly?

prettygreenparrot
Full Member
‘So high’?
Do you mean ‘why is petrol unsustainably cheap? And why have successive governments continued to hold duty on it since about 2011’?

becasue it would risk exponential inflation and reduce social mobility at a time when austerity was kicking in and now covid.

So not everyone has choice, and not everyone can just turn round and choose not to drive.

The choice was made for you by successive governments pushing car use and not investing in public transport. Ultimately, it will take government action to reverse this.

Local shops closed because more people started driving, so now you need to drive to get to the non-local shops.

Sorry for the long post – quite a lot to cover..

yours the petrol pump attendant..

Very interesting, and a lot more in depth than my rudimentary knowledge! I guess you work in the industry...? 🤔

Points ref stoich ratio’s, again broadly correct, however ethanol is not the only component in fuel that will have an impact, any oxygenate , including ethers and methyl’s will reduce the energy density (lower heating value/net calorific value), this is where depending on the operating conditions set within the ECU, you either loose power, or loose range.

Considering we have full grown adults on this thread arguing that "petrol is petrol" and saying that higher performance fuels such as Shell V-Power are snake oil, I didn't want to confuse things even more! 😂 But honestly, I have learnt quite a bit from your last post myself... I calculated the theoretical stoich ratios making assumptions that the fuel was only made up of petrol and ethanol, which I know it isn't. It also explains why when you see engine tuners' rolling road maps these days, if they have an exhaust gas analyser output too, they are aiming for stoich ratios in the low to mid 13's most of the time which is some 8-10% richer than they would have aimed 20 years ago!

I've always found the science behind petrol quite intriguing (I grew up with the 1980's F1 tubro era, the concept of them literally running liquid dynamite as fuel really impressed the kid in me), as petrol engines cover a huge range of operating parameters as you have pointed out. Diesel engines tend to be a lot more consistent in terms of useage range, using the same fuel in a 600cc motorbike that redlines at 16krpm and produces 200bhp per litre specific output as in a big block American V8 truck engine that redlines at 4krpm and produces maybe 35bhp per litre specific output, just doesn't make any sense to me! 🤷🏻‍♂️ Add in the common misconception that higher octane means higher performance (when in reality, it doesn't mean this at all), and arguably if the petrol industry just made more suitable fuels and marketed them well (several decades ago ideally!), then we could all have been more fuel efficient for quite some time now... 🤔

I understand that the price was driven up during the fuel shortage (probably because they could), but it hasn’t dropped at all despite there actually being no problem with supply…

the 'shortage' was a problem of supply logistics, there wasn't a shortage of fuel, the fuel just wasn't where customers needed it. Solving the problem of delivery cost money which is why prices went up - continuing to have that solution in place will continue to cost money.

But theres maybe the opportunity for a price correction for retailers just now too. Supermarkets have been selling fuel as a loss leader for over a decade - partly to compete between themselves but also because supermarkets don't want you to go anywhere else and they can best achieve that by ensuring you don't have anywhere else to go by driving indpendent retail out of business. They don't think theres money to be made from selling fuel, they think theres more money to be made from selling groceries if shoppers don't go anywhere else for fuel.

The filling stations you see with 'Shell' 'BP' or whatever on them are independents, they're not part of those big oil companies  - they sell that brand of fuel but they're an independent retailer. The price war between supermarkets is so fierce that other retailers, even though they are more expensive are often only make about £1 profit on a tank of fuel. The supermarkets don't need to make anything at all from fuel sales. Their strategy has been to sell fuel at cost or less until theres no competition - at that point they can sell fuel for as much as they like.... or once the independents are gone they can just decide not to sell it.

Problem is - electric cars have evolved - fuel sales will drop, and the cost of sale per tank of fuel is going to increase. That future monopoly the supermarkets were banking on is evaporating. Theres no point in retailers squeezing their margins anymore they may as well charge what their service costs now.

So not everyone has choice, and not everyone can just turn round and choose not to drive.

And thus you should pay a penalty to discourage everyone from living the simple life idyll whilst commuting to work elsewhere.

FWIW that sounds gloriously metropolitan compared to where I grew up 🤣 Buses on a Tuesday, the luxury!

Did a 100,000 on Morrisons petrol and my car (golf) ran as well as the day I bought it. Until a royal mail HGV ended it's life.

@mboy

they are aiming for stoich ratios in the low to mid 13’s most of the time which is some 8-10% richer than they would have aimed 20 years ago!

That would be the 'Paris Hilton' tuning methodology!

Part of what makes the OE modern small turbo, boosty, high compression engines so clever these days is how good they are at managing ignition timing and sensing knock etc. This is why the high octane fuel is good for them - lots of timing advance unlocks power (not the fuel itself as per Sui above!) and they lean burn a lot when they can.

What is interesting though is that from my experience an ECU will pull timing very quickly if it senses knock, but only advances and trims back leaner very gradually - this is why there's little point in people giving their car a "special treat" of 99 every tenth tank.

The filling stations you see with ‘Shell’ ‘BP’ or whatever on them are independents, they’re not part of those big oil companies – they sell that brand of fuel but they’re an independent retailer. The price war between supermarkets is so fierce that other retailers, even though they are more expensive are often only make about £1 profit on a tank of fuel. The supermarkets don’t need to make anything at all from fuel sales. Their strategy has been to sell fuel at cost or less until theres no competition – at that point they can sell fuel for as much as they like…. or once the independents are gone they can just decide not to sell it.

The true independents went years ago, thanks to Essos 'Price Watch' campaign of the mid 90's. I know because I was a casualty. I was doing ok even against the supermarkets but then Esso came along & started selling fuel for 5p a litre cheaper than I could buy it for. The supermarkets went along with it as did the majors but the small indy's like me couldn't compete. It sounded the death knell of 100's of rural petrol stations.
The big brand sites you see now are either company owned or franchised & have price support in place to compete with nearby outlets.

@SUI. There's only room for one petrol pump attendant round here.
Circa 1984 ish.
https://flic.kr/p/bYrxbL

To make cyclists feel good and distract them from their hobby's sharp price rises over the last few years. 😉

That’s a great photo.

Rural drivers having to drive further to get fuel wasn’t a step in the right direction, it was a loss.

I had a similar vintage 240GL about 12-13 years ago - it was awesome! It was like steering a slow moving tanker through sludge..

This suggests the sticky downward pricing mentioned up the thread is happening...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59508286

Also, I wonder whether the panic buying back in September has created a greater sense of value around fuel? That part of us still just feels lucky to get it at all?

this is why there’s little point in people giving their car a “special treat” of 99 every tenth tank.

Yes agree with that in terms of engine timing but there other additives in the fuel designed to keep your car sparking clean and running smooth from pump to exhaust so I think there is still benefit in the occasional top up of fancy fuel. Not high octane stuff from Tesco but the fancy stuff from Shell / BP etc ...