If there was no duty and VAT on fuel, the current price per litre would be around 50.2ppl. That’s generally less than a bar of chocolate or a packet of crisps. It is also far less than a litre of bottled water and you can’t run your car on water! Without duty and VAT, you could fill an average petrol car’s tank (50 litres) on around £25.
After tax, the next major part of the pump price is the price of crude/the price of refined products. These prices are set on the open market and, like tax, are not under our control. Other costs are our own distribution, marketing and site running costs. It is good business to keep these costs as low as possible. Once all this is taken into account, our actual profit at the pump works out at pennies per litre, sometimes less.
It is not true that our global profits are being made at the expense of British motorists. Our profits are global, with the vast majority coming from exploration and production in countries all over the world. Read our latest quarterly results on our global website for more information - opens in new window.
Well over 90% of Shell’s global profits are made outside of the UK and those that are made in the UK are mainly from our North Sea operations. These profits are invested back into our business to find and produce more energy that will keep fuelling our cars.
Because we want to compete in this very competitive, low-margin market, we are expanding our network to allow us to be more competitive into the future. This year we announced an investment in the retail business, acquiring over 200 new sites across the UK.
Figures based on the AA Fuel Price Report for September 2011 (PDF, 27.61 KB) - opens in new window, Unleaded UK Average pence per litre at 135.6.
