Which UK fuel brand is cheapest?

Supermarket forecourts — Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons — are consistently the cheapest of the large chains, because fuel is used to draw customers into the store rather than to make money on its own. Some smaller regional chains price lower still. The table on this page ranks every brand with at least twelve reporting forecourts by today's actual average.

BP and Shell operate more sites in places where a forecourt is the only one for miles, and they sell fuel as the business rather than as a loss-leader for a supermarket. They also invest in branded fuel formulations and forecourt facilities. The result is an average several pence above the supermarkets, though individual sites vary a lot with local competition.

No. All road fuel sold in the UK must meet the same standards — BS EN 228 for petrol and BS EN 590 for diesel — and much of it comes from the same refineries and terminals regardless of the sign above the forecourt. The difference between standard and premium fuels is the additive package, not the base product.

Every forecourt reporting to the government Fuel Finder scheme is grouped under its parent brand, and the mean is taken across all of that brand's sites currently quoting a price. Brands with fewer than twelve reporting forecourts are excluded, so a single unusually cheap or dear site cannot define a national average.