Asda renews battle in petrol pump price wars

Asda has fired the latest salvo in the petrol price war raging among the big supermarkets, providing a welcome boost to hard-pressed consumers.

The UK's second-biggest supermarket said it will cut prices by 2p a litre across the UK from tomorrow, which means its customers will not pay more than 132.7p a litre for petrol and 136.7p for diesel at all its 188 filling stations. Morrisons said it was also knocking 2p off a litre of petrol and 1p off diesel at "most" of its forecourts, while Tesco hit back by cutting its prices by 1p per litre at the"majority of our petrol stations".

The move by the big grocers followed a sharp drop in the price of Brent crude oil in London yesterday, which fell to $105.60 a barrel from $108.50.