Diesel hike on M-way
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by Miles Brignall
• Motorway services provider Road Chef and fuel supplier Elf are overcharging for diesel by nearly 60p a gallon at one of their service stations.
Last week CM paid a record 76.9p/lit for diesel at the Elf garage at Road Chef's Clackets Lane services on the southern section of the M25. While we were there several trucks came into the garage to fill up. At night the truck park regularly fills to overflow.
In the same week PHH Fuel Services, which monitors fuel prices round the country, was quoting an average forecourt price of just 64p/lit. This gives Road Chef and Elf combined extra profits of almost 13p/lit, or 58p on each gallon sold—on top of normal profits made by other fuel distributors.
A haulier buying 500 litres at the Clackets Lane services will be paying £65 over the odds. And the problem is made worse by the fact that westbound M25 drivers low on fuel have little choice as the next services are BP's South Mimms services which, last week, was charging a whopping 71.9p/lit.
When Elf and Road Chef were approached to defend the pricing policy they blamed each other. A Road Chef spokesman says the firm takes the fuel at an agreed price from Elf and adds a "small charge in pence" on top to cover the costs of setting up the site.
Elf's Tony Thompson will only say that the price it charges reflects the high costs that go with the site. He declines to say if Elf has put up any of its building costs, but points out that many operators are on bunkered fuel schemes and will pay lower prices.
Another Road Chef site, near Sandbach on the M6, was charging a more respectable 65.9p last week. Its diesel is not supplied by Elf.