Latest Fuel News

With temperatures continuing to fall during the week, the Highways Agency is reminding people of the need to be prepared when they set out on a journey.

Even if it’s not snowing, cold weather can create dangers that are less obvious – such as an increased risk of ice. This means you need to take care says the Agency, which looks after England’s motorways and major A roads.

“Although the forecast suggests you are unlikely to need a snow shovel this week, you should make sure you have plenty of warm clothing for you and your passengers. If you break down on the motorway it’s dangerous to stay in your vehicle,” says Jason Glasson of the Highways Agency’s winter team.

Customers could be facing higher costs to import goods from Europe if the UK governments new proposals to introduce road charges for hauliers are adopted.

Most EU countries charge lorries for using roads, meaning British vehicles pay to drive in Europe. Currently foreign heavy goods vehicles can use UK roads for free, but the Department for Transport has proposed a lorry road-user charging scheme for the UK to help British haulage companies compete.

Proposals have been announced that recommended a charge of £10 a day will be imposed for lorries of 12 tonnes or more using any UK road. It will apply to all such vehicles, but British hauliers could receive a reduction in vehicle excise duty as compensation.

For many Fleet Companies, (some that have just a few vehicles on the road) there is potential for each vehicle to be wasting a few litres of fuel everyday. Closely tracking your fuel purchases is one way to spot where the waste might be occurring.

Forecourt Fuels and their range of fuel card solutions offer their customers integrated fuel card reporting. In short this means that our Fuel Cards will track precise information on all fuel purchases and includes comprehensive monthly and year-to-date reporting to help fleets control costs and improve vehicle efficiency. Nick Staples, Managing Director of Forecourt Fuels, explained how that helps reduce fuel waste,

Motoring organisations around Europe are to step up their campaign for an investigation by Brussels into Diesel Prices/Petrol Prices and market manipulation by energy companies as the cost of diesel at Britain’s pumps nears record levels.

The AA said it would meet its counterparts on the continent early next month to find a way of easing the burden of rising fuel costs on hard-pressed consumers.

“There is a lack of transparency in the fuel market, which is of major concern to all of us.  Rising fuel costs are bad for the wider economy, driving up the price of food and other commodities.”

Motorists face chronic fuel shortages along with soaring Diesel prices and Petrol prices at the pumps after one of Britain’s biggest fuel refineries went bust, petrol retailers have warned.
Forecourt bosses and MPs said there was a risk of parts of the South East ‘grinding to a halt’ amid reports production had stopped at the Coryton refinery, which supplies around a fifth of the fuel in the region and 10 per cent of the UK’s supplies.
The closure of the giant Essex refinery also threatens to push up pump prices as supplies diminish.
The warning came as the refinery’s Swiss parent company Petroplus said talks with its lenders had broken down and it would be filing for insolvency with the loss of up to 1,000 UK jobs.

More than 80 fuel tanker drivers at the ConocoPhillips oil refinery at Immingham, North East Lincolnshire have begun a week-long strike.

They claim their employer, haulage firm Wincanton, is trying to reduce their pay by as much as 20%.

But Wincanton said the industrial action was “wholly unnecessary” and could ultimately put jobs at risk.

Similar action is taking place at depots in Kingsbury in Warwickshire and at Stockton-on-Tees.

The Unite union is warning that deliveries to Jet petrol stations could be disrupted.

The drivers voted by four to one last week to take industrial action, with 95% taking part in the ballot.

New technology is being brought in to reduce the long tailbacks that follow motorway crashes.

Many fleet businesses are being urged to monitor their fleet drivers after a breath-test crackdown over Christmas and New Year led to an unprecedented number of people being arrested.

Figures show Nearly 157,000 people were tested between December 1 and January 1, this led to More than 7,200 people in England and Wales being arrested.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says young drivers had a higher rate of offending at 5.7%, compared with 4% of over-25s.

Safety campaigners say the data shows warnings about drink and drug-driving are not working.

Do you ever get stuck when it comes to choosing the right Oil for your fleet vehicle ? Do you spend time searching for the handbook that has usually been misplaced ? Well Oil company Q8Oils is taking the guess work out of automotive oil purchases by launching a new SMS text service called  ‘OilM8’.

Consumers can now text their vehicle registration to 60999 and within seconds will receive a message with the correct Oil for their vehicle. Texts are charged at the usual network text message rate of 25p per text.

At least a third of a fleet vehicles fuel consumption is spent overcoming friction, according to new research, and reducing friction could play an important role in improving fuel efficiency.

A joint study by VTT Technical Research Centre and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) , suggests that new technology could reduce friction by up to 80 per cent in various components of a vehicle, meaning that it should be possible to reduce fuel consumption and emissions by 18 per cent within the next five years.