Brown takes big oil to task

Gordon Brown took Britain's petrol retailers to task yesterday for failing to cut pump prices in line with the recent slump in crude oil prices on the markets.

As the cost of a barrel of oil fell by $4 to $66 on the exchanges yesterday, Brown demanded to other sellers followed Asda and Morrisons' lead and bring the price of a litre of unleaded under a pound.

Speaking from the EU summit on the economic turmoil, he said: "It is encouraging that we have seen petrol prices fall in the UK in recent days, with some supermarkets reducing their prices to below £1 a litre. I would like to see other retailers following that lead."

The price of crude has halved since July, when it hit a high of $147 a barrel, yet prices at the pump have only come down by an average of about 10p, less than an eighth. The last time that crude was selling at its current price, the pump average was 92p a litre.

The Prime Minister warned the big petrol retailers that he would be charging the Office of Fair Trading with monitoring the cost of petrol, which he sees as another way of helping the population cope with the oncoming recession.

Meanwhile Opec countries called a meeting for next Friday to discuss whether to cut production in the face of a growing global slowdown in demand for their resource.