A supermarket giant has decided to cut the price of fuel by up to 2p a litre.
Asda said motorists would pay no more than 130.7p a litre for petrol and 135.7p for diesel at its filling stations in the north and north- east.
The supermarket said it was responding to a drop in wholesale fuel prices.
Asda petrol trading director, Andy Peake, said: “We know the price of petrol matters to our customers which is why we aim to be the first to pass on cuts in the cost of crude.”
The news follows the announcement that rival Tesco was cutting the cost of 3,000 products as part of a £500million campaign.
The AA said the prospect of a fuel pump price war would provide drivers with some relief, with average petrol prices just 1.6p short of the all-time record.
UK petrol prices currently average 135.87p a litre and diesel 140.11p.
AA president Edmund King said: “Drivers in towns with Asda fuel stations will very much welcome the passing on of lower fuel costs, and we will wait to see how other retailers respond.”
Motorists on Unst in Shetland are currently being charged 156.5p per litre for unleaded and 159.2p per litre for diesel, however.
Former Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott, MSP for Shetland, held talks with representatives from the Office of Fair Trading yesterday, which has agreed to examine why the price of motor fuel varies so much throughout Scotland.
He said: “Shetland doesn’t have supermarket competition.
“Transporting fuel from the mainland and the mark-up that local garages make doesn’t explain the 20p a litre difference between Aberdeen and Shetland.
“I’ve asked the Office of Fair Trading to explore this difference.”
Mr Scott said DCC, the company which owns Scottish Fuels which supplies Shetland, should be asked to “open their books” and explain the difference.
“The OFT can investigate an abuse of a dominant position,” he added.
“So where one company effectively has a monopoly and we are all paying through the nose, the argument in favour of an investigation is overwhelming.
“I am sure that every Shetland garage would co-operate with an investigation because I suspect it will show how much money Scottish Fuels are making at the motorists expense.”
Mr Scott said it would be unacceptable if a 5p reduction in motor fuel prices planned for the western and northern isles under a UK Government scheme was overtaken by an increase in Scottish Fuels profits.
Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil has asked the company’s director Tony Stewart to attend talks to explain the 4p-a-litre rise in the price of petrol and diesel just before the introduction of the discount scheme.
Scottish Fuels has denied it put up the price in anticipation and says it and uses a formula to track the market and set prices.