Shell makes £656 profit per second!

The petrol price war between Britain’s three largest supermarkets, Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury has reduced the cost of petrol by 2 pence. This comes as good news for the millions of UK holiday makers travelling throughout the UK for the May bank holiday. As of the 3^rd May, the cost of petrol will be around 129.7p a litre and diesel will be around 134.7p.
 
A spokesperson for the Automobile Association has said: "Today’s supermarket price war comes on the back of yesterday’s 40-dollars-a-tonne fall in petrol wholesale prices across Europe - equivalent, with VAT, to a 2.5p-a-litre fall at the pump. However, just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, two days of commodity price falls doesn’t signal the end of drivers’ pump misery. No one should underestimate the market’s ability to send prices shooting up again, often just on pure speculation."

This comes in the same week as Oil giant Shell announce record profits of £5 billion for the first quarter of 2013, which equals to around £656 per second.
 
Despite the fall in cost of petrol, the AA have criticised Shell for the still high costs found at the petrol station. However Shell place the blame on the UK Government for the high prices and claims it makes a limited mark up. At the peak of 2013, petrol prices hit around 140 pence per litre and diesel at 146 pence.

A spokesman for Shell has said: "The vast majority of price paid at the pumps is tax and duty. We competitively price our fuel and make a virtue out of the fact that our fuel is high quality. We believe the market in the UK is a good functioning competitive one and consumers have plenty of choices to get the fuel that they want."
 
However a spokesperson for the AA has said: “Motorists feel they are being ripped off by the markets. Many can no longer afford to drive which is why demand for fuel has slumped. But drivers will look at these figures and say the market is broken and needs fixing. Blaming tax is a lame excuse... it’s been frozen since 2011.”