A barrel of Brent crude oil is about 159 litres and costs about $86.50, or £62.85. It sells for about £227. Roughly, then, it costs 39p a litre and sells for 143p a litre, 3.6 times (that is, nearly quadruple) the cost.
My calculation of Brent crude to petrol station price is based on the Guardian story, UK petrol price hits all-time high, 25 Oct 2021, which stated that petrol was 142.94 pence per litre and $86.50 per barrel.
Fuel duty on UK petrol is 58p a litre. Value Added Tax at 20%
is 29p a litre.
In summary, when you bought petrol in Oct 2021, you were paying
60% tax, 27% for the raw material, which leaves 13% for production costs and
the retailer’s margin. (Strangely, since they add up to more than the total, the
latter are counted as respectively 30p a litre and 5p a litre according to www.nextgreencar.com.)
UK fuel duty has stayed the same for 10 years, the longest freeze for
more than 40 years, despite government talk since 1990 of a fuel ‘escalator’
that would gradually encourage people to use less fuel.
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