Shell, BP, Esso or Tesco: which petrol station is cheapest?

Published on 2026-10-07

No single brand is cheapest everywhere in the UK: each forecourt sets its own price, and while supermarket sites are usually the cheapest in their area, they are not always. Retailers now have to publish their prices as open data, so the honest answer is to compare today's price at the forecourts near you.

The short answer: the forecourt matters more than the brand

No chain charges one national price. Each forecourt prices against its local competition, its location and its volume, so a Shell in one town can undercut the Asda in the next, and the other way round.

Location is the biggest lever of all. Motorway services are reliably among the dearest places to fill up, and a forecourt a few minutes off the junction is usually well below them, whatever the logo.

So “Shell or Tesco?” has no answer in the abstract. The useful question is: which of the forecourts I can reach in ten minutes is cheapest today?

Oil brands, supermarkets and independents: what the labels mean

The logo on the canopy often tells you who supplies the fuel, not who sets the price. Many Shell, BP, Esso and Texaco forecourts are run by independent dealers or forecourt groups, who decide the pump price themselves. Two sites with the same brand can sit far apart.

Supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons) run high-volume sites with tight margins and use fuel to bring shoppers to the store, which is why they usually post the lowest prices locally. Costco can be cheaper still, but it is for members only.

Independents and convenience-led groups such as Applegreen sit in between: some price aggressively, some rely on being the only forecourt for miles. That is exactly why a brand rule of thumb breaks down.

Is the fuel any different?

No. All petrol and diesel sold in the UK must meet the same standards, BS EN 228 for petrol and BS EN 590 for diesel, whatever the brand. Standard unleaded is E10 everywhere, with E5 sold as super unleaded.

The differences are in the branded premium grades with their own additive packages, such as Shell V-Power or BP Ultimate, and in the service: shop, coffee, car wash, loyalty schemes. Unless your car asks for higher octane, standard fuel is the right fuel.

How to check who is cheapest today

Under the Motor Fuel Price (Open Data) Regulations 2025, retailers must report their forecourt prices to the government's Fuel Finder scheme, which publishes them as open data, and update a change within 30 minutes. Refil reads that dataset and shows prices in pounds per litre, the way you read them off the board.

What works: set a realistic radius around your usual routes, see which forecourts fall inside, and pick the cheapest for your fuel, whether it carries an oil brand, a supermarket name or neither. Repeating that every fill-up is where the real saving is.

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