{"id":914431,"date":"2026-10-03T08:16:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914431\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T08:16:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:16:38","slug":"minister-denies-uk-faces-diesel-shortage-after-trump-threatens-to-ban-exports-energy-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914431\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister denies UK faces diesel shortage after Trump threatens to ban exports | Energy industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government has sought to avert panic at the pumps, insisting that the UK is not facing a diesel shortage after Donald Trump<\/a> threatened to cut off US supplies of the fuel.<\/p>\n

The transport minister Keir Mather said on Friday that the UK has a wide range of sources of the fuel and is in talks with other European countries<\/a> over the potential release of emergency diesel stockpiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to reassure people that they can still go to the pump and fill up with diesel because the supply we have to the UK is inherently resilient,\u201d he said on ITV\u2019s Good Morning Britain. \u201cThe flows of diesel into the UK come from a variety of sources, and that is resilient.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government\u2019s obligation now is to work really closely with our partners [in Europe] and officials in the US administration to re-stress how important it is to have flows of diesel into the UK. People shouldn\u2019t be concerned about shortages because of the inherent resilience that is built into that system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK relies on the US for about 30% of its diesel, with the vast majority coming from mainland Europe, and has reserve supplies for 42 days.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week it emerged that the UK\u2019s biggest refinery, Fawley in Hampshire, is set to shut for up to 10 weeks for planned maintenance. The UK had 18 refineries in the 1980s but now has only four.<\/p>\n

On Thursday the UK opened talks with European allies<\/a> over releasing emergency diesel supplies, after the Trump administration told Germany and France to release their stockpiles to help ease soaring prices or face a US supply ban.<\/p>\n

Diesel price chart<\/a><\/p>\n

The average price of a litre of diesel<\/a> in the UK hit a record high on Friday, breaking the \u00a32 mark for the first time, according to the motoring body the RAC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a pump price threshold that no one wanted to cross,\u201d said Simon Williams, the head of policy at the RAC. \u201cThe average price of a litre of diesel has risen to a record 200.01p and is showing no signs of slowing, heaping more misery on to motorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter |Every weekday<\/p>\n

Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n

Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The government has extended the 5p cut in fuel duty until the end of the year. Earlier this week the RAC called on the government to extend the freeze into spring.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to give people support where we can,\u201d Mather said on GMB. \u201cThe government is not powerless. That is why we have a fuel duty freeze in place at the moment. The chancellor will set out the future of that at the budget, but is very aware of the impact that [high prices] are having on people.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, Dan J\u00f8rgensen, the EU commissioner for energy, said Europe was discussing the question of whether to release emergency reserves of diesel with all members of the International Energy Agency, not only the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis \u200cis one of the \u200bopportunities that we have; we \u2060have used it before, \u200band \u200bit is \u200blikely \u200bthat \u200cwe \u200bwould use \u200bit again,\u201d he told Euronews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government has sought to avert panic at the pumps, insisting that the UK is not facing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-914431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914431","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=914431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}