{"id":799057,"date":"2026-07-14T05:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T05:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/799057\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T05:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T05:21:14","slug":"fourth-australian-interest-rate-rise-more-likely-if-trumps-iran-conflict-not-resolved-within-a-week-interest-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/799057\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Australian interest rate rise more likely if Trump\u2019s Iran conflict not resolved within a week | Interest rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Resurgent oil and fuel prices could cement a fourth interest rate rise this year if Donald Trump\u2019s renewed conflict with Iran is not resolved within a week, economists warn.<\/p>\n

US missile strikes on Iran and Trump\u2019s announcement overnight of a new maritime blockade has lifted oil prices to their highest point in the month since the two countries agreed to a peace deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brent crude oil hit US$85 a barrel on Tuesday morning, while the West Texas Intermediate benchmark price for US crude surpassed US$80 a barrel. Both had been trading near US$70 in early July.<\/p>\n

Vivek Dhar, an energy commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank, said escalating hostilities could run down oil stockpiles and push prices far above their April high.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clock has started ticking again on global oil inventory depletion,\u201d Dhar said in a note on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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Continued conflict would push Brent oil prices to US$100 a barrel within 10 days and US$150 a barrel within 10 weeks, he said.<\/p>\n

Crude prices at US$110 a barrel in April sent Australian unleaded petrol prices to nearly 260 cents a litre and diesel to nearly 320 cents a litre.<\/p>\n

Rising oil prices in July had already pushed up wholesale diesel prices from 177.1 cents a litre early in the month to 186 cents a litre on Tuesday, according to the Australian Institute of Petroleum.<\/p>\n

Diesel prices at service stations have risen accordingly, back to about 190 cents a litre in the big capital cities, according to MotorMouth.<\/p>\n

Peter Khoury, an NRMA spokesperson, said markets had accounted for breakdowns in negotiations but fuel would start to get more expensive if oil prices remained elevated for more than a week.<\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s fuel excise relief is set to expire on 2 August, which will push prices up by 16 cents a litre.<\/p>\n

Matthew Hassan, the head of Westpac\u2019s macro-forecasting, said resurgent oil prices supported the bank\u2019s prediction that the Reserve Bank will raise interest rates in August.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt will feed into their unease that this inflation will be persistent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Markets have increased bets on an RBA rate hike since airstrikes resumed on Thursday, now betting on a 23% chance of a hike in August and more than a 50% chance by December. The RBA has already increased rates three times in 2026, to 4.35%.<\/p>\n

Renewed hostilities have damaged households\u2019 confidence in the economy, according the Westpac-Melbourne Institute tracker of consumer confidence, published on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the absence of that [conflict], we probably would have seen a more substantive recovery for the month,\u201d Hassan said.<\/p>\n

The survey found consumers had been growing less afraid of an interest rate rise and more hopeful their family finances would improve in a year\u2019s time, before the conflict heated up. Most were still pessimistic on average and expected a further rate increase in the coming year.<\/p>\n

My Bui, an AMP economist, said higher oil prices and the growing likelihood of a rate rise would drag consumer confidence back toward its April lows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe employment market hasn\u2019t yet deteriorated to concerning levels, and price pressures are still around,\u201d Bui said. \u201cSo we continue to see higher chance of a hike from the RBA in the August meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Resurgent oil and fuel prices could cement a fourth interest rate rise this year if Donald Trump\u2019s renewed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-799057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}