Sainsbury's has announced it will no longer sell Russian diesel at its 315 petrol stations by the end of this year. The supermarket giant made the announcement to show it 'stands united' with Ukraine and its citizens and comes amid pressure from customers.
The decision follows similar action by the company, including stopping the sale of products sourced from Russia, Kent Live reports. Retailers and energy firms are all trying to shake off their reliance on Russia for certain products after the country launched an assault on Ukraine in February. Russia is the third-biggest oil producer in the world behind Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Rhian Bartlett, food commercial director at Sainsbury's, said: “We stand united with the people of Ukraine and have taken a range of steps to show our support – from helping to fund the humanitarian effort on the ground, to removing products from our stores which are 100% sourced from Russia.
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“We have been working hard to reduce the amount of diesel we sell which comes from Russia since the early days of the conflict. This is a complex process but we are committed to working together with the rest of the UK fuel industry and Government to support the ban on Russian oil imports, which is due to take effect by the end of this year.”
Diesel and petrol prices continue to climb to new highs, figures show. Statistics from data firm Experian Catalist show diesel prices reached an average of 181.0p per litre on Wednesday, up from 180.9p a day earlier. The average cost of a litre of petrol at UK forecourts on Wednesday was 168.2p. That was up from 167.6p per litre on Tuesday.
