Grocers pay out £10m for fuel fiasco

Supermarket giants Tesco, Morrisons and Asda have paid out a total of about£10 million to date over the contaminated fuel problem that hit customers earlier this year.

Tesco said it has compensated 18,000 customers so far, about 90 per cent of those affected, at a cost of£8 million.

Asda has paid£1.4 million to 3,000 customers, about 97 per cent of those that claimed. Morrisons has dealt with 94 per cent of claims against it, but declined to put a figure on the cost.

The problem was caused by a rogue batch of fuel from a storage depot in Essex, affecting customers in the Southeast and East Anglia. The problem caused damage to sensors in the fuel tanks of cars, with repairs costing from£200 to£1,000 per car.