What the CMA Fuel Price Investigation Means for UK Drivers

What the CMA actually found

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched its road fuel market study in 2022 at the request of the government, following significant public anger about petrol prices during the energy crisis. The final report, published in July 2023, made several key findings:

Retailer margins had expanded significantly. In the years before 2022, the average gross retail margin (the difference between the wholesale price of fuel and the pump price, before operating costs) was around 7–8p per litre. By 2022–23, this had risen to approximately 13–14p per litre — roughly double the historical norm. The CMA estimated this cost UK motorists an additional £900 million in 2022 alone.

No collusion was found.The CMA was careful to note that it found no evidence of explicit price-fixing or coordination between retailers. The elevated margins appeared to be a result of market dynamics — specifically, the "rockets and feathers" effect where pump prices follow oil prices up rapidly but fall slowly, allowing margins to widen when oil prices fall.

Lack of price transparency was a key problem.Consumers couldn't easily compare real-time prices between nearby stations, which reduced the competitive pressure on retailers to pass on wholesale price falls promptly.

The government's response: the Fuel Finder scheme

Acting on the CMA's recommendations, the government legislated to require petrol retailers to publish their live pump prices via a standardised public API — the UK Fuel Finder scheme. The scheme has been phased in, with all major retailers required to participate and to update their prices continuously.

The logic is straightforward: transparency creates competition. If every consumer with a smartphone can instantly see that a station 0.5 miles away is charging 8p/litre less, the high-priced station faces immediate pressure to lower its price or lose customers. The data is no longer locked away in corporate systems — it's public and machine-readable.

This is the same data that powers WorthThePump. We query the official Fuel Finder API to get real-time prices from all participating stations near you — the same data that the CMA designed to restore competitive pressure to the market.

Has it worked?

The honest answer is: partially, and it's early days. Retailer margins have come down from their 2022–23 peaks, but they remain above pre-pandemic historical norms. Oil price movements and the complex supply chain make isolating the Fuel Finder's specific contribution difficult.

What we can say is that price transparency is a necessary condition for competition to work. Without the ability to compare prices easily, consumers default to the nearest station, regardless of value. The Fuel Finder removes the information asymmetry that historically allowed high-margin stations to thrive.

Whether the scheme fully achieves its goal depends on consumers usingthe data. A mandated price API sitting unused doesn't compress margins. It only creates competitive pressure when drivers actually compare prices and act on them.

What "rockets and feathers" means for your wallet

The CMA repeatedly used the phrase "rockets and feathers" to describe UK petrol pricing dynamics. It refers to the observation that pump prices respond to wholesale price increases like a rocket — fast and immediately — but to price decreases like a falling feather — slowly and gently.

This asymmetry benefits retailers at the expense of consumers. When crude oil falls 10%, you might wait 2–4 weeks to see any of that reflected at the pump. When crude rises 10%, the pump price often moves within days.

Understanding this dynamic helps explain why your local station might seem stubbornly expensive even when you read that oil prices have fallen. The CMA found this was a real and measurable phenomenon — not just a feeling. And the recommended solution — price transparency tools that put competitive pressure on lagging stations — is exactly what WorthThePump delivers.

What you can do right now

The Fuel Finder scheme gives you a powerful right you didn't have before: access to real-time prices at every major UK forecourt. But data alone doesn't save you money. Acting on it does.

Enter your number plate into WorthThePumpthe next time you need to fill up. We'll show you which nearby stations are genuinely offering a saving — and which ones are just the convenient ones. Every driver who comparison-shops is part of the competitive pressure that, collectively, is nudging the market toward fairer pricing.