Motorists and small businesses struggle with costs as Iran war drives up cost of oil worldwide
‘Half my day’s pay goes to filling up my car’
British motorists face more pressure at the pumps after the average price of diesel climbed to a record £2 a litre.
The price at UK forecourts has risen sharply since late February, when the US-Israel war on Iran began disrupting supplies of crude and refined oil products from the Gulf, leading to cost increases across the economy.
The RAC motoring group said on Friday that the average price had reached 200.01p a litre, meaning the cost of filling up an average family car is now £110, nearly £32 more than before the Iran war.
Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, said: “This is a pump price threshold that no one wanted to cross.”
Earlier on Friday the transport minister, Keir Mather, sought to avert panic at the pumps, insisting that the UK is not facing a diesel shortage after Donald Trump threatened to cut off US supplies of the fuel.
Motorists and small businesses have been struggling with the increasing cost of filling up.
The fresh high was recorded after record fuel prices across Europe in recent weeks, which have ignited calls for political leaders to take action to protect consumers against rising cost pressures.
Inflation in the cost of road fuels has outpaced the surge in global oil markets due to a sharp drop in output from refineries damaged by war in the Middle East and in Russia.
Before the Ukraine war, Russia provided between 10% and 15% of the world’s diesel supplies. Another 10% of global diesel supplies transited through the strait of Hormuz from Gulf nations before Iran responded to the US-Israeli attacks by disrupting the strait.
Donald Trump is pushing his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cease Kyiv’s drone and missile attacks on Russian refineries so they can help to relieve the global fuel squeeze.
