Petrol price war looms as euro barrier is broken

A petrol price war was looming tonight as some service stations dropped a litre of petrol to under €1.

The Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI) said motorists across the country should be begin to feel the results of competitors benefiting from lower wholesale costs.

Six service stations around the country – in counties Monaghan, Galway, Donegal and three in Offaly – were listed on independent website pumps.ie as selling petrol at 99.9c.

A further 12 kept sales under 103.9c a litre, while another two sold fuel under 104.7c.

However, the site listed the average price for petrol this week at 107.9c while diesel was 109.9c.

The CAI’s Dermot Jewell said the lower prices on the pumps appeared around the border regions yesterday.

“To all intents and purposes a price war has started there south of the border, went above the border, and is now starting to spread back down the country which is positive,” he said.

“It’s good news for consumers for the moment anyway.

“The important element here is that you can be certain that nobody will be selling below cost so it is still a challenging and competitive price and that’s what we need to see.”

Terry Cassidy, owner of Tirchonaill Filling Station in Carrickmacross, said his forecourt has been busier since he started selling petrol at 99.9c and diesel at 102.9c.

He said he wanted to pass his savings on wholesales costs to his customers.

But Mr Cassidy stressed his nearby competitors had not yet followed suit.

“There’s not really a price war up here. No other garage in the area has dropped their price below a euro, only ourselves,” he said.

“We’re about 10 miles from the border and I was up in Newry on Monday and Diesel was 109.9p and petrol was 99.9p.

“But that doesn’t put any pressure on us to drop our prices.

“With the tight times we are in at the moment we just wanted to pass that on to the customer.”

Fergal O’Leary, of the National Consumer Agency, said healthy competition is good for the market.

“We welcome the fact that petrol prices appear to be falling and we urge all customers to make sure they take advantage of it by checking prices before they go into a garage,” he said.

“If we all went to the cheapest place then the others would have to bring down their prices too.”