The UK is facing its most expensive fuel prices in decades.

The cost of fuel has been rising in the UK since 2018, with the average price of a litre of petrol reaching £1.21 and diesel £1.28 in August 2021. This is the highest it’s been since the mid-1990s, when the last fuel crisis hit. The rise in prices has left many people wondering why this is happening and what can be done to bring them down again.

Why are fuel prices so high?

Fuel prices have been rising for several years now, but they’ve recently shot up dramatically following a series of factors that have affected the price we pay at the pump. Firstly, Brexit negotiations between Britain and Europe caused a drop in value for sterling against other currencies, which made it more expensive to import oil from overseas.

Next, many oil producing countries began to reduce their production of oil as part of an OPEC agreement to help increase global oil prices. This meant that there was less supply than usual on the market, which pushed up prices even further.