FLEETS will see the benefits of lower fuel prices wiped out by increases from the main oil companies and supermarkets. But fleet managers are pointing out that prices are still lower than at the beginning of the year.

Retailers have blamed recent rises in the wholesale price of petrol and the pound/dollar exchange rate for the move, although some oil companies have yet to raise prices.

A spokesman for Shell said: 'We have increased prices by 1p a litre (4.5p a gallon) at around half of our filling stations because of the rise in the cost of the refining process and the exchange rate.' Esso said any movement at its filling stations would be in response to other rises in local areas, while a spokeswoman for Tesco said prices had been held down for as long as possible. BP said the company has followed suit with an increase of about 2p a litre (9p a gallon), saying the overall increase of wholesale prices over the last few months to the fuel retailers had been about 2.5p a litre.

Chris Pith, plant manager at Redrow Homes, who looks after a fleet of 450 cars and 17 vans, said: 'It will affect us, but the prices are still not as high as they were about three months ago. We will be worse off than we have been recently but we will be contacting all drivers to look for the cheapest filling stations.' Susan Short, fleet manager for Toshiba Information Systems, with a fleet of 150 cars, said: 'It will push costs up slightly, but it shouldn't make a huge difference to us.'